Innocence's Pearl
by draconic skysong
Summary: A loss of inoscence combined with a world that's darker than Keyra ever knew and her journey to reach the top will be more difficult than any journey ever was before. and yet. pearls of rose-colored light can be seen in the deepest darkness... I don't own pokemon, just a Mew plushy!
1. Chapter 1

Innocence's Pearl

Prologue: From There to Here

Wingull flew overhead with an occasional pelipper tagging along and diving down to scoop up a Magicarp or Febus from the water, their cries piercing the otherwise silent morning. A massive cruise ship cut it's way through the crystal blue water pearl white smoke billowing from one of it's smokestacks. A woman with dusky red hair and crystal blue eyes stood on the deck her eyes gazing out over the ocean one hand idly playing over the several red and white spheres belted around her waist. Pulling one off her belt she enlarged it and called out a humanoid creature, the creature's slender form leant against the woman who ran a hand over her long turquoise hair a soft smile on her lips.

"Are you ready for this? Are we, ready for this?"

The woman gazed down at the concerned rosy eyes of her companion and smiled, "We are Pearl, We've all trained hard for this, and we're as ready as we can be. If we fail than so be it but I don't intend to."

The newly named Pearl looked back at her companion, "And if you do fail?"

"Then so be it," the woman replied her tone firm, "If Arceus' will is for me to fail then I know I gave it my best shot, that we gave it our best shot."

A whistle blew and the woman smiled down at the gardavoir beside her the two engaging in a brief kiss before the woman recalled her to her pokeball. Hiking her backpack onto her shoulders the woman exited the ship once it docked at Ever Grand City and made her way into the nearby pokemon center. Handing her pokedex to the Nurse Joy manning the counter the woman responded to the nurse's raised eyebrow.

"My name is Keyra Lang and I'm here to challenge the Elite Four."

Nodding the Nurse typed in some information after scanning Keyra's pokedex, handing it back the pink-haired nurse smiled, "You have a month to make it through Victory road, Your Challenge will be one week after you exit victory road to give your team time to rest. The journey won't be easy."

"With all due respect mam, no journey worth it ever is."

The nurse grinned across the desk at Keyra, "With that mindset I think you'll go far. Now if you'll excuse me I've got others to attend to."

Turning away from the desk Keyra made her way out of the center and stopped a moment to admire the crystalline cave in front of her before turning and facing the sea once more. Casting her eyes towards the sky and noting there was plenty of daylight left she nodded knowing there was enough time for her to make progress before nightfall. Releasing her team for one final pep talk before the next phase in their journey Keyra reflected how she got here from where she began.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter one: The Starter

Hitching a black backpack up over her shoulders a sixteen year old woman stood on the porch of her grandmother's house a warm smile on her face, a light in her crystal blue eyes. She was wearing a simple black shirt and pants and sturdy black hiking boots. Her grandmother was still asleep but Keyra was itching to get her starter pokemon. She knew the elderly woman would be awake soon enough and Keyra wanted to surprise her. The sun was just cresting the horizon of little-route town though it was just past half seven in the morning, early enough Keyra figured to make her way over to Birch's lab. Hopping off the last step she began walking the 2 blocks to the tall expanse of white stone she could see in the distance. There were several others who were set to get their starter today, but Keyra wanted first pick otherwise she'd have to adjust her plans to fit what was left or worse, not get one of the traditional starters. She had passed up the chance to leave when she was ten since she felt that ten was too young to survive on one's own and she didn't want to just survive she wanted to thrive. Keyra had spent the past years reading everything she could get her hands on although trying to remember over eight hundred pokemon was nearly impossible so she focused on the ones she had a particular interest in plus the legends, starters, and most commonly used in the various regional tournaments and even then that was nearly four hundred and fifty pokemon between all 7 regions. It was enough to send anyone's head spinning even just the basic information of types and other basics. Stepping up to the lab Keyra buzzed the door and impatiently waited for someone to answer it, she couldn't help the impatient foot shifting her body was seeming to scream, "Get out of here, go see things, prove your old friends wrong and make something of yourself"

A well muscled balding man finally opened the door glancing down at the nervously shifting woman and Keyra smiled, "Professor Birch? I'm Keyra and I'm here for my starter pokemon?"

"Of course! You're rather early I only just finished feeding them, but never the less, come on in and we'll get you squared away."

Following the professor into the back of his lab Keyra gazed around at all the shelves piled high with tottering stacks of paper and open and non-opened books. Stopping at a small table containing 3 miniature red and white pokeballs each having a picture of one of the three starting elements on it Keyra glanced up at the professor for permission to take one. After the man nodded with a smile Keyra leaned over and pulled up the ball with the swirling pattern of green leaves on it. Pressing the button to enlarge the device Keyra sent it into the air with a flick. The pokeball snapped open but before Keyra could catch the returning ball it had already bounced off her head rolling across the floor.

Blushing Keyra turned and retrieved the ball and turned back to see the professor snickering at her, "Don't worry, when it's linked to your trainer belt it will automatically return there easier to avoid knocking yourself out with your own partner's pokeball now isn't it."

Keyra grumbled something and glanced down to see the pokemon she had hoped would be her starter snickering in it's, no, his own way at her Keyra noted after noting the darker color of the males verses the females.

She crouched down to get a better look at the small green gecko in front of her. Treecko was a small, green, bipedal reptilian Pokémon. He had yellow eyes with long, narrow pupils, and his hands and feet were covered with tiny spikes. His stomach and throat were red, reminding Keyra of fallen leaves on the ground in the heart of autumn . Treecko had a line across his stomach resembling a pouch. Treecko had a large, dark green tail with two separate lobes which Keyra knew would allow the gecko to predict the next day's weather by sensing the humidity in the air.

The treecko gazed back up at her and thumped his tail on the ground with a soft cry, Glancing into the gecko's eyes Keyra could see something reflected there, the drive to be something stronger than he was and she smiled, "Treecko, would you like to be my partner?"

The tree gecko let out another high pitched cry and Keyra smiled, returning him to his pokeball. Straightening up Keyra grinned at the professor who grinned back in return.

Taking Treecko's pokeball Professor Birch typed a few things into a small hand held device he was holding, "Would you like to give your treecko a nickname?"

Keyra thought about it, knowing that while the gecko was in stasis if she gave him a nickname, it would automatically imprint on him and if the rumors were to be believed it would aid in the bond of trainer and pokemon. She nodded in reply and at the professor's questioning glance Keyra replied, "I'd like to call him Autumn."

Finishing his typing Birch straightened handing Keyra a slender belt with 6 loops one could use to hold pokeballs as well as a spot for her pokedex which he also handed her. Keyra idly noted that the device was a sleek black and red and seemed to have more than just a database of all known pokemon.

"That pokedex can also function as a payment method for pokemart purchases as well as credit transfers in trainer and gym battles. It also contains a video phone line if needed."

Smiling at the professor Keyra made her way out of the lab noticing that it was only a little bit past eight o'clock. Turning the corner into her yard Keyra smiled at the sight of her grandmother sitting on the porch drinking her morning cup of coffee. Her graying hair was pulled into it's usual heart-shaped bun and when the old woman's hazel eyes fell on her Keyra beamed and called out her treecko noticing that after the ball released the green gecko it did in fact return to the belt around her waist.

"Isn't he just the cutest thing!"

"Gran he's not cute he's cool." Keyra laughed as Autumn slammed his tail on the ground in agreement with her.

"All base level pokemon are cute, well not all of them. There's some who don't follow the cute factor but still." Her grandmother pulled Keyra into a hug as she added, "Your mother and father would of been so proud of you."

Keyra's parents had died in a fire at their breeding center only a few months ago, no one knew who started it and the mauville Jenny was still investigating. The building was a loss, but due to the nature of pokemon eggs the eggs survived and were being taken care of by area Nurse Joys.

Motioning for Keyra to stay put for a moment her grandmother headed back into the house for a moment. While she was gone Keyra slung her pack around in front of her and went through it one more time to make sure she had everything she would need. Acting much like the technology that was first introduced with pokeballs the traveling backpacks could hold far more than normal from a compartment for pokemon food to a compartment for travel items such as a tent and sleeping bag. Double checking she had all the essentials Keyra re-hitched her pack just as her grandmother exited the house something bright orange and round carefully cradled in her arms.

"This egg was found near your parent's bodies along with a few others... It's still several months from hatching but it was sent to me for looking after. My pokemon days are behind me, at least my training days though you've always loved playing with mine when you were younger and taking care of them in the past several months."

It was true Keyra reflected, Her grandmother was a top coordinator in her day and her team was proof of that. She only had four pokemon but they were still in tip top form. The flygon, swampert, mightyena and ninetales had adored Keyra and she them often spending time playing with and later on learning to take care of them in preparation for her journey. Gently taking the egg from her guardian's out held arms Keyra carefully nestled it in an outside pocket of her bag often used if a pokemon wanted to travel outside their pokeballs in the early stages of a trainer's journey.

"We're not sure what the egg will hatch into, but it's at least three months before it does and it's in perfect health for this stage all anyone knows is that it's definitely a fire type."

Keyra nodded softly caressing the hard leathery shell.

The two stood there gazing at each other for a long time before the younger woman leant against the older woman who pulled her into a tight embrace making soothing noises as Keyra tried very hard not to cry. Looking down at the tree climbing pokemon who stood on the rail of the porch the elderly woman smiled, "You take care of her, Autumn, you hear me? She's the only family I have left."

The treecko pumped his tiny fist as Keyra pulled reluctantly away from her grandmother's protective embrace and Keyra knew she was doing more than just leaving the protection her grandmother offered her over the past few months when things had gotten confusing and hectic, Keyra knew she was leaning towards the next stage of her life one where she could spread her wings and finally fly. Recalling Autumn Keyra smiled and with a last nod to her home for so long finally turned her feet towards the edge of town and the two hour hike to oldale town and the true start of her journey, the sun climbing higher in the sky as she strode onward and mentally as well as spiritually upward.

Keyra sent out Autumn as she made her way onto route one hundred and one so he could get some work in, it was beneficial to have young first stage pokemon out with in reason since walking as well as other forms of training gave them the endurance for drawn out pokemon battles and overall stamina. She also spent a moment to look up his current moves in her pokedex. She found the expected pound leer and absorb, but there were 2 moves she didn't expect to find, Grass whistle would come in handy for stalling opponents and aerial ace would be a shock to other grass as well as fighting and bug types. Keyra smiled down at autumn who was humming a cheerful little song while occasionally picking up various leaves gazing at them for a moment then putting them back down. Keyra figured that he was trying to find a good leaf to use for grass whistle Shaking her head at her starter's antics who finally managed to find a smooth deep emerald leaf from a nearby holly bush Keyra turned her eyes to the road. There weren't any pokemon around here that she was interested in but they all seemed to be hiding or sleeping or deeper into the route anyway, Route one hundred and one was like most routes for beginning trainers, in various regions, short and having only the basic pokemon or, highly underused ones. Cresting a hill Keyra and autumn finally caught sight of the first stop on their journey together and the two let out a cheer. Keyra recalled autumn to his ball and made her way down the slope to Oldale town looking forward to something to eat since she skipped breakfast that morning. The wide world was waiting for her and Keyra as cliche as it sounded the redhead couldn't wait to explore it and make new friends along the way.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Two: The beginning

Oldale town was roughly the same size as Littleroot but it appeared to be slightly more populated even though the main attractions were the pokemon center for new trainers as well as the pokemart which sold supplies for trainers and non trainers alike. Further outside the town was a small ruin and Keyra could see several scientists moving around. Turning a corner Keyra made her way towards the pokemart only to be stopped by a tall burly man in a green salesman uniform.

"New trainer?"

Keyra just stared at the man, she had no clue where he had even come from after a moment she nodded.

"Then let me give you this, it will help if your pokemon is injured during battle."

The man handed her a small potion bottle before skipping down the road and into the pokemart leaving Keyra standing there shaking her head and wondering if all salesmen drank a gallon of coffee to be as cheerful as they always seemed to sound. Pocketing the bottle Keyra headed into the pokemon center and made a dash up to the counter.

"I'd like to register for the gym challenge please?"

The nurse on duty giggled slightly at the younger woman's enthusiasm before entering something into a computer.

"Do you wish to take the tournament challenge, or the elite four challenge?"

"Looking slightly confused Keyra tilted her head as she asked, "What's the difference?"

"The difference is in the end. You travel around to the 8 gyms like normal, but once you have all eight badges you can choose to enter the ever grand conference which pits trainers from all over the region against each other until there is only one left and that one gets a cash prize and an additional slot for a seventh pokemon. They are allowed to capture as many pokemon as they want and can swap their team around during the tournament depending on their opponent's team. The elite 4 challenge is harder in that you collect all eight gym badges, then face the elite four and the raining champion but you are only allowed six pokemon total on your journey so you have to consider what you'll need and your team carefully. After you defeat the current champion along with anyone else who has then those of you will battle it out to see who becomes the new champion."

Keyra glanced down at her belt for a moment, She never really thought about owning more than six pokemon anyway figuring she wanted to spend the time with those she had to become the best they could be, and how could she do that when she was constantly sending them back and forth to the lab.

"I'll take the elite four challenge. But I am curious, my grandmother lives alone back home and I was going to find a companion for her. She has her four team members from her coordinator days, but I didn't want her to be lonely."

"That won't be a problem. If you catch more than six pokemon. Let's say for example when you reach Rustboro and you have 3 pokemon before you face the first gym which is a 2 verses 2 battle, and you have let's say a treecko, a beautifly , and a zigzagoon. If you use treecko and beautifly in the battle those are 2 of your 6 pokemon you're expected to face the elite four with baring trades or other unexpected things such as accidents or injuries. The zigzagoon could be used as a sparring partner or used in trainer battles though."

"So what you're saying is I can only use six pokemon and only those six pokemon in official league battles but as many as I want in trainer and wild and training battles?"

The nurse nodded and Keyra inclined her head She knew she'd have to rely on strategy more now, but she was up for the challenge. Becoming the champion of the Hoen region was in it's own way, daunting but it's not like she was the governing body of the region that was left to the gym leaders and the elite four themselves champion now was just a name only, the proof she was the strongest trainer in the region. The president of the Hoen region oversaw the regional tournament but he himself was a retired trainer any regional president had to of retired from pokemon training to learn the statecraft required though they usually kept their team as friends and guards and partners they just didn't go out and participate in league tournaments any more. Her grandmother was one she participated in contests across the world coming in top in many of them but when she got tired of it she retired her team she still kept them well trained. Keyra knew that her mightyena patrolled around the house at night and that loyal wolf was good at his job but her grandmother's team was old and Keyra wanted to find her grandmother someone to take care of while she was gone.

Taking her pokedex back from the nurse Keyra smiled and headed back out into the sun and turned her steps towards route one hundred and two. As she walked Keyra browsed through her pokedex her mind puzzling through the six pokemon she could want on her team and though there were many to choose from Keyra knew she needed a balance of types power and strategy. Route one hundred and two was just the place to find one of the pokemon she was hoping for she had a team in mind ever since she was a little girl and skimming her pokedex for their moves and stats Keyra smiled the team she'd always wanted was just about right. At least five of them were. She mentally replaced her choice of a fire type with what ever came out of the egg. Even though she always wanted a vulpix, there was just something about the fact that the egg was found near her parents bodies that made Keyra want to make the life growing inside it a part of her champion team.

Setting her pack down as the sun had slipped behind the trees Keyra decided to set up camp for the night.

A faint shimmer of starshine filled her gaze, starshine and blackness, and as soon as the starshine appeared it was replaced by light. Two pearlescent pink beads of light. The pearlescent pink light blinked out and Keyra opened her eyes to a sky that was gray with pre-dawn light. Wiggling out of her sleeping bag Keyra covered the remains of last night's fire with dirt as she stretched. Her body wasn't used to sleeping on the ground even though she had a sleeping bag with extra padding, nothing compared to a mattress. She let out a low groan as she felt several pops along her spine then pulled over her backpack to begin straightening up the campsite from the night before. Keyra had found herself a small clearing near a pond the previous night and her and autumn had sat together just watching the stars come out while keeping warm by a small fire she had managed to start. Keyra had plenty of trainer meals but she also knew what berries were good for trainers to eat as well as pokemon so if she found herself in a food crunch she could always survive off the land if need be.

A loud cry came from overhead and a snoozing autumn landed on her head snickering softly in his sleep. Keyra quietly returned him back to his pokeball and after hitching up her backpack decided to make an early start traveling, Petelburg was only a day's travel but Keyra wanted to make as much progress as she could.

Keyra had been on the move for several hours as the sky overhead steadily lightened from deep indigo to opalescent blue as the sun rose. She hadn't seen or heard any wild pokemon thus far and was wondering where they all were that was until she heard a faint cry coming from behind a bush. The cry was high pitched and she frowned, what ever had made that cry sounded as if it was in some de stress. For some reason Keyra felt that cry pull at her heartstrings so she crouched down to investigate. What she saw made her fists clench reflexively. Laying at the base of a bush was a ralts but it wasn't a normal ralts but what appeared to be a shiny one. One with a shattered pokeball beside it. The ralts was covered in bruises and Keyra quickly retrieved the potion she had gotten the day before. Crouching down Keyra smiled softly as the small psychic type looked up at her.

Ralts was a humanoid Pokémon with a white body. She had thin arms and legs that widen toward the feet. There was a wispy extension trailing off the back of her feet, creating the overall impression of a nightgown or oversized dress. Most of her face was covered by turquoise hair that resembled a bowl cut, but Keyra could just glimpse a pair of rose pink eyes behind the curtain of hair. There were two flat, red horns on top of her head: a large one toward the front and a smaller one at the back.

The ralts whimpered slightly as Keyra held out a hand to her but the woman persisted, "I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to spray this potion on you to help you heal. That's all. Will you let me help you?"

The young psychic and fairy type opened her eyes fully as she gazed at Keyra and the redhead was briefly reminded of two pearlescent pink orbs of light from an earlier dream. Finally relaxing as much as she could the ralts let Keyra spray the potion onto her.

Keyra slowly sat back on her heals smiling down at the small humanisk looking pokemon, "I get the sense you had a trainer previously correct," after Ralts' fearful nod Keyra continued, "I would understand if you wouldn't want me to, but I'd like to ask, would you like to come along and be part of my team? I don't believe in harming pokemon if they don't do what I want, and those who abuse pokemon deserve to have an angry Flygon dragon pulse them into the next century."

Ralts seemed to giggle before Keyra heard a faint child-like voice in her head, "Yes please..."

Keyra smiled glad she would have someone to talk to as well as play translator for the rest of her team. Enlarging a pokeball Keyra healed it out to the tiny fairy type who tapped it with a hand and was instantly sucked into the ball.

Straightening up Keyra scanned ralts' ball with her pokedex, finding that she had the egg moves confuse ray as well as thunderbolt made Keyra wonder just why anyone would abuse then abandon a shiny ralts like this. Releasing Ralts from her pokeball Keyra smiled, "Ralts, would you like a nickname?"

Ralts nodded and Keyra smiled, "Good because I have the perfect nickname for you. What do you think of Pearl?"

A soft smile lit Pearl's face and Keyra smiled, "Yesterday I kept autumn out of his pokeball to travel with me, today it's your turn if you would like, later tonight when I stop to make camp I'll have the two of you spar with each other unless we come across a trainer battle before then, does that sound fair?"

In answer Pearl just stood next to the redhead who started off down the road.

As Keyra continued onward She ran into a few trainers which allowed autumn and Pearl to get some valuable battle experience. As Keyra drew closer to the end of the route a boy stepped in front of her a glare fixed on his face. Keyra stopped short for a moment when she realized the glare wasn't aimed at her, but Pearl beside her.

"So you managed to find yourself a new trainer. Shocking after the way you looked the last time I saw you."

Turning to Keyra that ralts couldn't even defeat the weakest wormpull confusion or no confusion."

Keyra glared back at the boy in front of her, "What's your name boyo, I'll show you how good Pearl can be. And even if she lost at least I don't abuse my team like a mouthy snot nosed little brat like you clearly did."

"Fine, we'll battle, one on one, "Backing up slightly the boy pulled out a single pokeball, "Kyo calls Poochina!"

The small gray puppy stood in front of the boy now known as Kyo a snarl on it's usually friendly face. Glancing down Keyra smiled at Pearl, "You can do this pearl. I have faith in you."

Pearl stepped out in front of Keyra and glared at the poochina in front of her.

"Poochina, bite that runt!"

"Pearl, disarming voice."

At the sound of her trainer's voice Pearl teleported away from the charging puppy and let out a soft cry, sending a blast of pink-hued energy at the dark type in front of her. As the poochina turned Pearl blasted it with another wave of energy leaving the gray dog sprawled out on the ground.

Keyra knew that you didn't have to tell a pokemon every little thing to do, micro managing them would only lead to problems in more intense battles and she glanced up to see Kyo recalling his dog with a growl. "You must of cheated. Ralts can't learn fairy moves."

"Uh dumb ass, ralts is classified as a psychic and fairy type. Or did you just assume that it wasn't as strong as she's just proven herself to be."

Kyo flung a wad of bills at her with a huff as he stormed off. Keyra beamed down at the small psychic type who was now twirling in what the redhead could only describe as a happy dance.

"Thank you trainer friend for helping me."

"Pearl, the name's Keyra. Just Keyra. I'm going to return you to your pokeball now since we're close to the next city and I need to take care of some things."

Saying that Keyra clipped Pearl's ball back to her belt and continued her treck to Petelburg city.

"Now this. Is a city,"

After taking care of the obligatory pokemon center and pokemart stops Keyra found herself standing in front of the pokemon gym. Glancing at a sign next to the door Keyra's shoulders slumped, it seemed she couldn't challenge this gym yet. Not until she had four badges. Sighing to herself she turned to make her way out of the city, since there was no point in sticking around Keyra decided to move on. The petalburg woods would be her next stop.

Autumn, let's see your pound on that tree stump! And Pearl thunderbolt that other stump,"

Keyra stood at one end of a clearing on the first part of route one hundred and four as she observed her pokemon in a training session her pokedex in hand as she scrolled through the moves her treecko and ralts could learn.

The two finally stood in front of her and Keyra grinned, "That was great, the moves you both have are looking really good, but it's time for me to teach you both something new. Autumn I want you to start learning quick attack to give you a method of priority in battle and it will come in handy against the bug types we're sure to face in the Petelburg woods. Pearl I want you to start working on double team. Autumn I want you to run around this clearing as fast as you can while picturing a thin blaze of energy around you. Pearl I want you to teleport around and project your psychic energy into forming copies. The aim is to leave your opponent confused and unsure who the real you is."

Both pokemon set to their tasks while Keyra got a campfire going over which she hung a pot for a simple night time stew. She had never guessed that orin and citras berries would make a pretty good stew when mixed with some clove and cinnamon. It was a simple recipe her grandmother had showed her but it had become one of her favorites it was sweeter than most stews trainers learned to cook, but it was packed with energy for both her, as well as her team, not to mention vitamins to improve her pokemon. A loud cry from the far end of the clearing made Keyra glance up from dicing some ginger and she smiled to see autumn slam a bush in a full body tackle surrounded by the faint white energy of most normal type moves that shielded the body from injury to the user while usually sending an opponent flying. Glancing over at Pearl she grinned to see 4 different Pearls teleporting around and Keyra figured she'd better put a stop to it before she exhausted herself. After the three had eaten their dinner Keyra unrolled her sleeping bag and curled inside it. She felt two weights on either side of her and smiled slightly before falling asleep. She couldn't ask for better pokemon. This felt like the beginning of a rather crazy adventure but Keyra was looking forward to it.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter three: The forest

It was dark in there, and Keyra hated dark. She really hated dark so much that even at home she had a rose-shaped nightlight plugged right next to her bed. It wasn't natural dark like night that she hated because there was starshine and moonshine but it was the unnatural dark from objects that cast shadows where there shouldn't be shadows and a deep dark, dark deep forest was just the kind of thing she didn't like. And Petelburg woods was just that kind of deep dark dark deep that she didn't like one bit. She called both Pearl and autumn out of their pokeballs and grinned down at them, "It's dark in there, and I'm not a fan of dark places like that. So do you two feel like keeping me company?"

Autumn let out a cheerful cry as he pumped his fists in the air and Pearl tilted her head, "You're afraid of the dark?"

Keyra sighed at the telepathic comment from the ralts, "No, I'm not afraid of night time, just unnatural darkness. It's stupid and irrational, but it's me."

"But the forest is natural, it's just as natural as you, or me or the lizard over there."

Autumn let out a tiny treecko roar and swung his tail at Pearl who teleported on top of Keyra's backpack sticking out her tongue.

"You have a point there Pearl and I'm going to have to get over that fear at some point. But the dark was never something I liked after an incident with my uncle three years ago. I hope having you both with me will help me get over that."

Pearl's eyes flashed scarlet for an instant, the small psychic fairy couldn't help herself. Her friend the person who had saved her after finding her beaten and bloody on the side of route one hundred and two was hurting and Pearl didn't want her to hurt. Touching her trainer's mind and autumn's as well the fairy caught a glimpse of a man who smelled, not quite right, the scent of alcohol on his breath and a cowering woman naked on a bed. Quickly breaking the link before Keyra could notice anything she caught the yellow enraged eyes of her traveling companion and both nodded, they would help their trainer in any way they could. Pearl swore to be the best friend to Keyra since she could sense that thanks to that incident Keyra didn't have many people to depend on.

Keyra headed into the woods both Pearl and autumn walking on either side of her. She was stopped by a traveling trainer who wished for a battle and Keyra decided to give autumn the first battle that Keyra was sure the woods would provide.

The trainer sent out a small yellow and cream caterpillar and Keyra just nodded to autumn who took a battle stance in front of her.

"Quick attack,"

Autumn's body took on a soft white glow as he shot forward slamming into the wormpul's side sending it skidding into a tree. The worm shot out several poison barbs which autumn spun to dodge.

"Wormy, string shot, slow that gecko down!"

"Grab the string and slam it"

A mass of sticky thread came rushing towards autumn who spun once more catching the stringshot on his tail. Continuing the spin the wood gecko sent the wormpull flying once more into the ground where it laid knocked out.

Recalling his fainted pokemon the bug catcher held out a wad of bills which Keyra took with a nod before continuing on. Finding her way to a small clearing Keyra decided to stop for a break for lunch.

Glancing up from her lunch Keyra heard the sounds of running feet, standing up she palmed her pokeballs and considering the next instant a man came dashing through the trees Keyra was glad she had.

"Help me, please! They're chasing me!"

"Who are you and who's chasing you?"

"Team Arrow!"

Keyra raised an eyebrow as the man got behind her as two men in black uniforms entered the clearing.

"Look here girly, get out of our way and you won't have to be hurt."

"I'm not moving this man appears to of done nothing wrong to you."

"He's holding a device we need. We don't want to hurt innocent people, so move or we won't be held responsible for what happens next."

Sensing the implied threat to their trainer autumn's and Pearl's forms materialized from their pokeballs taking up defensive positions in front of their trainer

The two team arrow goons each sent out a pokemon, a koffing as well as a grimer and Keyra winced this battle wasn't going to be easy but she wasn't going to let some random creeps in black hurt an innoscent person.

"Pearl, confusion on grimer, autumn, quick attack on koffing.

The two leapt into action, autumn slamming hard into the floating solidified ball of gass sending it back slightly as a pink glow surrounded the literal pile of sludge.

The fact that both poison types didn't immediately take heavier damage proved to Keyra that they were both stronger than her two, and what was worse she was staring a type disadvantage in the face. Not so much for pearl, but autumn was in trouble.

"Autumn, aerial ace on koffing!"

"Koffing explosion!"

Keyra gasped as autumn's claws glowed blue and he flew towards the rapidly expanding koffing. At the same time Pearl landed hard in front of Keyra several poison burns covering her body. A massive blast shook the clearing sending talo fluttering into the air from the surrounding trees. When the smoke cleared both autumn and Pearl were breathing hard their bodies covered with small nicks and scratches as well as the poison burns in Pearl's case. The two team arrow goons snickered cracking their nuckles after recalling their downed pokemon both of them stepping towards Keyra and the man still behind her the two goons palmed two small silvery blades and Keyra gulped.

"We're only gona ask you one more time girly move aside otherwise that pretty body of yours won't be so pretty when it's covered in blood."

Two flashes of blueish-white light flaired with two small cries. Keyra narrowed her eyes as the twin releaces of energy and light grew larger. The two goons dropped their knives and fled not wanting to be on the receiving end of angry second stage pokemon right after evolution. The twin flashes of light faded and Keyra cracked open her eyes, autumn and Pearl wern't so tiny any more. Taking in the new look of her starter Keyra grinned over at the grovyle standing strong in front of her the wounds from the battle fading due to the healing light of evolution.

Grovyle was a bipedal Pokémon similar in appearance to a theropod dinosaur. He was primarily green with a red underside. There was a belt-like green stripe across his belly. Grovyle's hands had two clawed fingers, and powerful legs with bird-like feet. Keyra knew that autumn's well-developed muscles made him a damn good climber and allow him to leap quickly from jungle branch to branch. Keyra knew he'd eventually become one of the fastest attackers on her team. Autumn had three long leaves on his wrists, a large leaf on top of his head, and two tails that had a leafy appearance. The leaves provided the grovyle and later sceptyle species natural forest jungle or woodland camouflage Keyra grinned because the leaves on autumn's arms could be used in his signature move, Leaf Blade.

Turning to Pearl Keyra gasped. The second Pearl's eyes met hears Keyra felt something sturr inside her that she couldn't explain. She found herself staring at the newly evolved Kirlia her grin getting wider briefly.

Kirlia was a bipedal, humanoid Pokémon that appeared to be wearing a tutu. Most of Pearl's body was white, and there were three ruffles on each hip. Beneath the ruffles, she had skinny green legs with pointed feet. Pearl's arms were also thin with two digits each. Her turquoise hair fell to her shoulders with a ponytail on either side making the second stage psychic and fairy type look rather cute in Keyra's opinion. . Large, rose-colored eyes were visible on either side of the silky hair that still partially covered Pearl's face. A small red crystal could be seen on either side of Pearl's head making it look as if her pony tails were held together by a shimmering red hairpin.  
Keyra recalled both Pearl and autumn so they could rest, getting injured as they did, coupled with evolution, an evolution Keyra didn't expect for another few days, she wanted to make sure there were no ill affects. Returning their pokeballs to her belt Keyra couldn't help but smile for an instant before questions came tumbeling into her head. Turning to the man behind her Keyra lifted an eyebrow, "Who the hell are Team Arrow... And just who the hell are you,"

The man held up his hands, "I mean you no harm. I'm an employee of the Devin corp. And those two goons were after a component that I'm delivering from route one hundred and eleven's ranger station to my boss to complete our fossil revival machine. As to who Team arrow are, They rose up after teams aqua and magma fell, but they're more violent than either of them. They want power. I don't know their true goal, but they're nasty work. If their pokemon can't do something, well they have no problem getting physically involved."

Keyra sighed to herself, just what she didn't want. But she also couldn't stand by and watch someone else get hurt. She would just have to do her best to stay out of their way and not get in the middle of things.

Holding out his hand the Devin Corp employee smiled, "I appreciate the help, my salamance was exhausted from the fly so I landed here to take a breather, I had no clue those goons were on my tail. I don't have much, but this greatball should help you along the way."

Keyra smiled pocketing the ball in her backpack. The man had pointed out a shortcut to Rustboro and Keyra had headed off in that direction. She exited out of the woods and glancing back Keyra realized they wern't what was scary, but what's contained in them sure was.  
Continuing down the route Keyra came to the end of a foot bridge that spanned a small crystal clear pond. Off in the distance she could just make out the tall skyscrapers of Rustboro in the distance. Smiling softly to herself She set across the pond eagerly looking forward finally to her very first gym battle. She knew the leader used rock types, and she felt that with autumn and Pearl having both reached their second stages shouldn't have any issues. Maybe, Keyra thought, the deep dark, dark deep places of the world wern't as bad as she first thought. Some good came out of that forest as well.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter four: The Gym

Keyra made her way to the pokemon center and waited patiently for the line to disperse at the counter. As she approached, the nurse smiled, "Welcome to the Rustburrow pokemon center, how can I help you?"

"Hi, I was wondering if you could take a look at my pokemon? They evolved sooner than I was expecting and I wanted to be sure there were no ill affects."

"A pokemon evolves when they're ready. It's not like there's a certain point of growth where they do, they feel their ready is when they do. But of course I'll give them a check up."

Keyra smiled and made her way over to the cafeteria eying the menu she didn't realize how hungry she was and just how much she craved something that wasn't trainer meals which were good, but nothing compared to a fresh tauros burger with jalapeno cheddar cheese and hot sauce, pilloswine bacon and pickles.

Nurse Joy's voice came over the PA system as Keyra was just finishing her lunch. Returning to the counter Keyra picked up her two pokeballs and gently put the egg back in it's spot on her backpack,  
"Were there any problems?"

The nurse smiled, "Everyone's fine, and your egg is growing nicely now that it's with someone. Withot the heat from another living person, or if it was in one of our standard incubaters it would take another three months to hatch, but I estimate it will be shorter than that. I'm guessing another month give or take a few days."

"Do you know, what kind of pokemon it will be? My grandmother says it's going to be a fire type, but I was wondering if there was a way to tell what, species?"

"As eggs are nothing but a shell around energy until the last 2 weeks before hatching, at this point in time there's no way to tell what pokemon will emerge from your egg. If it was something like a togepi that would be a different story."

Stopping by the video phones Keyra waited for a young blond to finish her call before she setteled in to give her grandmother a call.

"Heya gran! I finally made it to Rustboro city!"

The elderly woman smiled at the happyness in her grand daughter's voice, "What's the good news?"

" My treecko evolved and I caught a ralts who also evolved not too long ago!"

"That's great! They must already care for you a great deal."

"I was wondering, since I'm not there, and your team aren't ones to garden, I was wondering if I could find you a companion to help you out?"

"Keyra you don't have to, but the thought is appreciated. If you found a pokemon more interested in helping an old woman than batteling then I'd love the help. It's harder for me to get down in the dirt these days after all."

The two spent some more time talking, Keyra telling her grandmother how she was taking the league's elite four challenge instead of the usual tournament one. Her grandmother in turn told her that that was the same route her father took, he managed to defeat the elite four, but lost in the second round of the champion tournament. He beat it the next year and held the champion trainer spot for 3 years until Keyra's mother beat him. Hanging up after some more small talk Keyra nodded and headed out of the pokemon center. She needed to find a place to train autumn and Pearl so they can get used to their new forms and Keyra wanted to see what moves if any they gained upon evolving. She would of checked in the petelburg woods, but after nearly being skewered by knives she just wanted to get out of there. Stepping onto route one hundred and sixteen Keyra slipped a bit off the beaten path so she could release autumn and Pearl who both stood in front of her for a moment before both carefully pounced on her in a hug.

"Alright you two, I'm all right, but I need to make sure you two are used to your stronger bodies before we take on the Rustboro gym."

Quickly scanning the two with her pokedex Keyra smiled, autumn had picked up leaf blade as well as screech which replaced leer. He had forgotten absorb and it was replaced with mega drain, pound had been replaced with fury cutter as well. Pearl had learned dazeling gleme. She had also lost confusion and gained psychic in it's place, and growl had been replaced by hypnosis. Overall the redhead was pleased and pointed to some large tree trunks a bit past the clearing as well as some loose bolders.

"Alright you two, let's see what you've got. Autumn, leaf blade on the trunks, Pearl, psychic, let's see how long you can hold those boulders up for." Keyra was grinning as the two's attacks were launched flawlessly. That was until Pearl's psychic surrounded the bolders. The bolders turned out not to be bolders at all, but two gravler who had rolled off the near by mountain and must of stopped here to take a nap.  
"Crap, autumn, leaf blade on the graveler!"

Keyra really didn't want to be squished by a pair of angry bolder rocks due to disturbed naps. Autumn sprung off the tree he was currently slashing and swung twin leaf blades at the first graveler. Pearl turned and a sparkling pink flash from her eyes later the second one had joined it's partner in rolling away.

Quickly recalling autumn and Pearl Keyra made her way back to town so she could finally earn her first gym badge.

Stepping into the gym Keyra noticed it looked more like a museum than a pokemon gym, There were display cases containing various crystals and stones as well as what appeared to be ancient pokemon skelitons. It made sense since the gym leader was one of the few rock type experts baring Rok and Brock of Sinnoh and Kantoh respectivly. Slowly making her way through the various isles Keyra finally made her way to a flat battlefield which appeared to have only a few bolders scattered around it. A tall brown-haired woman with a deeply tan compleksion stood at the other end writing something in a notebook as she observed two pokemon who seemed to be having a sparring match in the middle of the field. Keyra couldn't identify the two batteling rock types and her pokedex had no information on them either causing the woman to suspect that they wern't native to this region.

Glancing up from her notes the woman clapped her hands and the two sparing pokemon stopped their attacks coming to stand in front of her.

"That's enough for now you two. Head back into your tanks and we'll pick up this training later."

The two pokemon let out soft cries one appeared to be a small turtle and the other looked like a small brown shell with 2 beedy black eyes on it.

"I appologize for my slight distraction, I had just recently been allowed to train a kabuto and a tortuga, duel rock and water types, one from kanto and the other from anova. Can I assume you're here for a gym battle?"

Keyra nodded and the woman bowed, "Well you've come to the right place. My name's Roxanne. This will be a two on two pokemon battle, with no substitutions, is that acceptable to you?"

Keyra nodded as Roxanne called out her first pokemon. A massive graveler roared from the other end of the field. Keyra palmed Pearl's pokeball and the kirlia appeared with a soft cry.

"Graveler, start this off with rock tomb."

"Pearl, teleport and confuse ray."

Keyra Knew that with the graveler's high defense the confusion wouldn't hurt it much, but it would be enough for Pearl to fire off a hypnosis, putting it to sleep would allow Pearl to attack almost uninhibited. The kirlia's eyes flashed and a pale purple glow surrounded the graveler ball. The rolling bolder viered off course and into one of the bolders that littered the field.

"Hypnosis!"

"Graveler, close your eyes."

Pearl teleported in front of the confused rock type who despite his confusion blinked at the right time, causing the sleep educing waves to pass over it. That didn't deter Pearl though who raised a hand causing a thin psychic aura to surround the confused pokemon lifting it up in the air before dropping it.

The sand that made up the field slightly cushioned the graveler's fall and the fall had the extra benefit of snapping Graveler out of his confusion.

"Graveler, magnitude!"

"Pearl, magical leaf!"

Leaping into the air the gray bolder slammed 2 of it's arms into the ground causing the sand to buck as small rifts opened. Pearl found herself unable to focus enough to teleport, but was able to spin into a twirl sending several leaf-shaped blades of psychic energy at the duel rock and ground type. There was no extra glow as there would be if the grass-type attack came from a pokemon such as rosalia, but it was still enough to leave the graveler on the ground with swirls in it's eyes.

Recalling the graveler Roxanne sent out her second pokemon, a nosepass though to Keyra it looked more like a brick-shaped compass.

"Nosepass, earthquake!"

Pearl landed hard and Keyra quickly recalled her, she realized that she'd have to find a way for pearl to deal with physical attacks better than she does at this point in time. "Autumn, it's up to you!"

Her grovyle landed on all fours briefly before straightening up and eying the nosepass in front of it. "Screech into leaf blade!"

Autumn began to rub his fan-like leaves together producing a deafening screeching sound which caused the compass pokemon to wince. It was durring that winse that autumn slashed out with two glowing leaves.

"Nosepass, dodge them!"

"Stay on it autumn, mega drain."

Nosepass backed up it's needle-like arms waving to ward off the still slashing leaf blades. Autumn changed tactic and a glowing fist slammed into the stone compass. The stone type let out a roar as it's energy was sapped before grovyle let it go with a shove back to Roxanne's side of the field.

Roxanne recalled her downed pokemon and strode across the field to stand in front of Keyra, Well done, For beating me, I present you with the stone badge as well as a disk for the TM move, Rock Tomb."

Keyra Smiled as Roxan held out a small wrist mounted credit chip and Keyra pulled out her pokedex which chimed to accept the money transfer. Keyra smiled after pinning the badge to the inside of her badge case before slipping it back into her backpack and made her way out of the gym to get Pearl seen to. Taking a magnitude as well as an earthquake couldn't of been very pleasant. As she exited the gym Keyra caught sight of a man running past just up the street, being per sued by the same Devin Corp employee she had helped in the woods the other day. Shaking her head the redhead turned and made her way back to the pokemon center to give her team a checkup. After a hard fought gym battle Pearl and autumn deffenatly needed one.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Five: The Egg

Glancing at the map on her pokedex Keyra sighed, she needed to backtrack through the petelburg woods to a small boat house that was on route one hundred and four, or she could see if her kirlia could teleport her there instead. Now that she thought about it. Why didn't people get a psychic pokemon to teleport them all over. She decided to look up the details behind teleportation mostly to apease her curiosity. Scrolling through her pokedex Keyra frowned as she read

Teleportation was instinctual to most psychic pokemon, bar the bronzon and metagross lines as well as a few others. For some like first stage pokemon and second stage pokemon there was a limit to distance and it wore them out after constant use. So teleporting to every city wasn't advisable since it would wear down a pokemon's body if used too much to go too far. Teleportation was limited to the size of a pokemon, one such as a ralts or abra could teleport at most a few miles. Kirlia could teleport a few dozen, depending where they wanted to go. Less if they were taking someone with them. Fully evolved psychic types could teleport contenents away so from Hoen to Kanto, or Kanto to Sinnoh. Keyra smiled, it wouldn't be any trouble for Pearl to teleport her to the boathouse she remembered seeing. She figured there was no harm in a little time saving.

Exiting the pokemon center and making a stop by the Rustboro pokemart Keyra managed to restock on the escentials, trainer meals, and managed to get more specific pokemon food as well as food for a newborn fire type since she knew the egg would hatch soon.

Making her way out of the city Keyra released Pearl who twirled around the giggling woman as soon as she could. "Pearl, do you remember that beach on route one hundred and four before the woods?"

At the kirlia's nod Keyra continued, "Do you think you could teleport me there? I'd like to get a head start to dewford today since the boat ride is going to take about two weeks?"

In answer Pearl took Keyra's hand, enveloping the two in a multi-colored flash Keyra felt as if she was floating. In that brief moment where trainer and pokemon were energy, Keyra was unaware of the impact it would have on the rest of her life. In that moment, the emotion pokemon was able to sense a deep hurt from her trainer, one she had caught a glympse of as a ralts, but was only able to comprehend what it meant now.

As the flash faded Keyra took a moment to find her footing, the feeling of being teleported was rather strange almost float-like and she needed a moment to re-oriant herself with the real world. Spying the small boathouse she remembered seeing Keyra stepped inside and out of the slightly humid air. A man was sitting behind a counter and looked up as she entered, "Off to Dewford?"

Keyra nodded as she passed her pokedex over to the man who scanned it, "Alright, there is a ferry departing shortly and the trip is going to take about two weeks, depending on the weather, and migrating pokemon."

Taking her pokedex back as well as her ticket Keyra exited the back to see several large ferries docked in the harber one which headed to slateport, one to lilycove, and the other to dewford. Boarding the ferry Keyra found her room and set down her stuff before sending out Pearl and autumn. The grovyle glanced around before moving into a patch of sunlight to bask for a while. Walking over to him Keyra held out the disk for rock tomb wanting to give him a bit more of an edge and coverage in case he found himself in a tight spot. The disk glowed for a moment and the brown glow spread to the grovyle before it all together faded leaving the disk cracked on the floor.

Stepping out of the bedroom which Keyra noticed had a second bed in it the redhead and her 2 partners made their way to an upper deck to see what sorts of amenities this ship had to offer. There was a simple healing machine, a video phone, and from what Keyra could figure out a room one could rent for light training. The ferry also had a small pool and Keyra couldn't help wonder if this was a ferry, just what would a cruise liner have to offer. Returning to her room to get some rest Keyra noticed that the other bunk was taken by a young girl with honey blond hair and celestial blue eyes who bounced over to her as she entered.

"Hi there! I'm Brianna! It looks like we're roommates for this trip!"

Keyra grinned the younger woman's bubbily attitude was infectious and the redhead figured that this trip wouldn't be so bad. She figured she would at least get a new friend and maybe friendly rival out of it at either rate. The two woman setteled in for the night, both talking about inconsiquencial things before both falling asleep.

That's mostly how the two weeks went, Keyra training Pearl and autumn while every night she and Brianna would spend talking about what they hoped to do during their journeys. Keyra found out that Brianna wanted to be a coordinator though she had a good team for that, between a combusken, a kadabra, as well as a snorunt and a bagan. If Keyra ever faced her in a battle later on, the woman would have one tough team.

It was the second to last night of their trip and Keyra sat polishing the egg which had started to make several soft sounds and rock slightly over the past 2 weeks and she knew it would be just about ready to hatch. Putting her pack down as she was just about to turn in for the night Keyra noticed a small crack on the top of the egg.

"Holy shit! It's finally going to hatch!"

Brianna who was laying on the bunk across the room rolled off the bed with an umph as she scampered over to look at the egg. Several more cracks started to appear and the cracks were shortly followed by small flashes of light. The two women stared at the rocking egg that eventually took on a blazing orange glow. Brianna backed up to the other side of the room to give Keyra a clear shot at impressing on the infant pokemon. The glow warped and changed shape until a small, cat-like creature was sitting in front of her. The tiny feline let out a cute girlish yawn Keyra noticing that the creature was indeed female as it circled around slightly before it's eyes caught hers. The cat let out a soft purr and Keyra gently reached out to stroke it.

The creature was a quadruped, feline Pokémon covered with primarily black fur. She had a short muzzle with a tiny, black nose, red eyes with yellow sclera, and short, pointed ears with pale gray insides. There were two red stripes around each of her legs and two horizontal stripes with a vertical stripe across them on her forehead. The lower part of the creature's face was also red, and there was a large tuft of fur on each cheek. A tuft of fur sat at the end of her long tail. Observing the baby fire kitten for a moment Keyra noticed that when she arched her back, three pointed tufts of fur with red tips appeared along her spine.

"You're so cute! But, what, are you?"

"That's a Litten, one of the alola starter pokemon, a duel fire and dark type! Damn Keyra you're lucky!" Brianna squealed as the small black and red cat yawned curling up in Keyra's arms.

Keyra smiled feeling a warm glow in her chest this is the pokemon that her grandmother had gotten shortly after learning about the accident involving her parents, and the redhead felt closer to them now than she had in several months. As the litten opened it's eyes gazing at her Keyra smiled, "Hello there. Would you mind if I called you blaze?"

The fire feline just yawned and setteled back down for a nap. Keyra knew that a newely hatched pokemon wouldn't be able to battle for a week since it was just getting used to the real world outside of the egg it had been in thus far, and if they used any of their moves there was a chance for wild energy fluctuations that made training a just hatched pokemon dangerous.

Scanning the newborn Keyra's eyes widened, just who were this kitten's parents. To have flamethrower and crunch already, Keyra also noticed that it had leech life, a move that was thought weak, but due to studies was actually stronger than when first discovered all those centuries ago.

Keyra lightly tapped Blaze with a pokeball which stilled almost instantly leading Keyra to grin, the small fire and dark type trusted her that much already. She could tell that that girl was going to be a major help to her team. Quickly re-releasing the kitten Keyra also called out autumn and Pearl while Brianna watched from on top of her bed.

"Guys, this is our newest team mate and friend. Her name is Blaze. The grovyle and kirlia started jabbering their strange pokespeach at the litten who meowed something in return. The three eventually fell asleep in a pile and Keyra didn't have the heart to return them.

The last day onboard the ferry was spent in one of the training rooms, Blaze was just watching Pearl's and autumn's training for now while Keyra sat and talked to her while making sure the furball had enough to eat seeing as how a baby pokemon did almost nothing but eat and sleep for that first week.

Before they knew it, Keyra and Brianna were heading off the Dewford ferry, Brianna off to visit relatives on the other side of the island before the contest in a week and Keyra made her way to the pokemon center to get her team especially Blaze looked at. She would spend a few days in granet cave training, then take on Brawley for her next badge, With blaze being too young to battle plus having a weakness to fighting moves Keyra hoped autumn and Pearl would be up to the challenge.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter six: The fighter

If there was one thing to be said about dewford town, it's that everyone loved surfing. Everything was surf or sea related and Keyra wondered just how this place was home to a fighting gym and not a water gym or something. As she scanned her pokedex's map to see what sorts of aquatic pokemon were migrating this way she frowned, only tentacool and their evolved form, as well as sharpido and waylord. The only one of interest was the water and dark type, but considering she already had one, she wasn't that interested in another duel type of the same. If it was pure dark, Keyra might consider, but that was a long way off.

Exiting the center Keyra glanced around She couldn't spot the gym anywhere. Asking around to some of the locals Keyra discovered that Brawlie moved it to the other side of the island several years ago. For a fighting type trainer, he apparently wanted to give his challengers more of a challenge than just a battle. Keyra resigned herself to a hike since between one side of the island and another was a rather large hill.

"This isn't a fucking large hill, it's a fucking small mountain!" Keyra thought. Blaze who was riding in her backpack snickered at her while autumn and Pearl walked alongside.

Standing at the base of the mountain Keyra noticed what appeared to be a cave entrence or what was once one, however it seemed to of been caved in by a rock or mud slide. She knew that granet cave was a popular place for trainers and scientists alike to look for certain evolution stones but She couldn't recall anything in the news about the cave being damaged by a rock slide. Shrugging Keyra began to make her way up the mountain which she had to admit wasn't too bad. The sun and the sea air was refreshing. And when she turned a corner all she could see was deep blue sea. The view was amazing.

Keyra continued moving upwards only to eventually come to what appeared to be a dead end. Glancing up the wall she noticed the entrence to a tunnel but the only way to it was to climb. Thankfully the rock wall provided plenty of hand and foot holds. The tunnel was only a dozen or so feet above her, but Keyra didn't relish climbing back down. A few loose stones tumbeled away as Keyra pulled herself up the last few inches into the tunnel which she realized was lit by dim electric lights.

Moving deeper into the tunnle Keyra turned a corner and found herself standing at one end of an immense stone maze which appeared to be half hidden in shadow.

"Well, looks like we managed to find the gym. Here goes nothing."

Two things were immediately apparent, first, the light barely penitrated the ground so Keyra had to rely on her other senses so she didn't get turned around. The maze also had random fighting types through it who would challenge her and her team when ever she came across them. Types such as machop, tyrogue, Keyra even came across a scrafty at one point. The deeper she got into the maze, after having to back track several times Keyra finally found herself on the edge of a flattened field formed from sand. There was nothing else on the field but sand. Ringing the field were dim lights which brightened when Keyra stepped into what she realized was a trainer box. A tall man stepped out from a cluster of shadows grinning boyishly at her, "Heya there chicka! Name's brawley! And You've managed to find my gym. Since you're here, the rules are quite simple. This is a two on two battle. You're allowed substitutions. I. Am not."

Keyra nodded as Brawley called out his first pokemon. When the flash cleared Keyra blinked, it looked like a strange. Purple. Frog one she recognized as a Crogunk.

Keyra wondered if it's double weakness to psychic would offset the fact that Pearl was part fairy type. There was only one way to find out.

Pearl! Let's do this!"

The shiny kirlia appeared on the field with a twirl and Brawley decided to start things off, "Faint attack!"

Keyra growled, Pearl once it lands, psychic."

She knew there was no way to dodge faint attack so Keyra would just have to take it. Hopefully doing some damage and knocking out the rcoagunk in return. A black shimmer surrounded the poison toad before it vanished and reappeared slamming into Pearl's side. From where the croagunk hit Keyra noticed a small purpleish burn That croagunk must of poisoned pearl with the sweat from it's own body. Pearl was running on borrowed time now. The Kirlia's eyes flashed pink and Crogunk let out a bellow! The toad in turn lashed out a wave of sludge which Pearl tried to teleport away from, but winced at the poison flowing through her body. Keyra quickly recalled the psychic fairy before she could be sent flying from the fighter's venoshock. Frowning slightly Keyra sent out autumn knowing she was at a severe disadvantage.

"Autumn, aerial ace!"

"Crogunk, sucker punch!"

A shadowy fist came out of nowhere and slapped autumn across the face as his claws glowed a pale blue, sending several blue blades of energy at the already weakened poison type. The fighting toad landed hard on the ground it's eyes closed and autumn let out a loud victory cry.

What came onto the field next made Keyra frown. It was a meditite and Keyra frowned. Figuring she'd take the upper hand this time she called out, "Leaf Blade!"

"Take it little dude!"

The grovyle's leaves glowed green as he slashed at the blue and white meditation pokemon who just leaned with the blows. The Meditite then leapt up meeting one of autumn's leaf blades with a hight increased high jump kick. Both pokemon leapt back to their side of the field glaring at the other.

"Autumn, grass whistle!"

A soft haunting melody filled the room one that Keyra would expect to hear from a wood flute not from a holly leaf. The meditite's eyes closed but Brawley was still smirking, "Sleep talk!"

"Autumn, dodge out of the way, and retaliate with aerial ace again!"

The meditite's eyes flashed gray but it didn't do anything else. Keyra figured, it was either meditating or using bide, if it was bide Keyra may be able to win before it was done, but it'd be one hell of a gamble. Autumn dove at the psychic type again sending it skidding back but still it continued to sit there. Biding it's time and snoring in sleep.

"Leaf blade"

Brawley stood there, his eyes watching his sleeping fighter as autumn's leaf blades sent it skidding back to his side of the field. The gym leader frowned recalling the fighting type before Keyra could call another attack.

"I wasn't going to chance bide if you had gotten another hit off, even another aerial ace you would of won. Since there wouldn't be enough time for meditite to wake up and or attack and since aerial ace is an assured hit. It would of been over either way. You batteled well even once your kirlia got overwelmed by my croagunk. This nuckle badge is yours, along with the disk for the move bulk-up."

Keyra smiled as she took the badge and the technical machine. She turned back to Brawley with a question, is there an easier way out of this mountain, or do I have to wander through the maze all over again?"

In answer the gym leader sent out a medicham who quickly teleported Keyra back to the pokemon center on the island before teleporting away with a nod. Grinning, finally that she had received her second gym badge Keyra turned and skipped inside. She needed to check when the next ferry to slateport was but before she did she was getting Pearl seen to. She also wanted to find someplace to train since Pearl clearly needed to build up her defense a good bit Keyra just wasn't sure how to do that. She needed to sit down and do a bit of research since pearl fainting to what was affectivly 2 nutral hits didn't sit with her. Armed with her todo list Keyra setteled in for the rest of the day having learned a lot from this victory, narrow as it was. They needed to improve their training and Keyra would find a way to do just that.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Seven: The loss

Stepping off the Slateport ferry Keyra sighed, the week long trip was anything but relaxing. This time she had a room to herself since it seemed many people were staying in Dewford to watch the contest. Keyra could never consider herself pretty or the type to make pokemon moves look cool. She'd rather focus on battle than beauty. Autumn, Pearl and Blaze had enjoyed the time out of their pokeballs but there was something at the back of Keyra's mind that she hadn't wanted to think about one night. And yet she ended up thinking about it anyway. Autumn and blaze had just gone off to bed, the fire kitten curling up in a heated basket and autumn sleeping on the windowsil. Pearl for some reason enjoyed the comfortable bed across the room though since she was humanisk in other ways, why shouldn't she enjoy a bed. Keyra had just finished showering and exited the bathroom, a towel around her when she stopped short. Her kirlia was laying on the bed eyes closed and a hand between her legs. Blinking hard Keyra shook her head, "Oh great, a masterbating Kirlia. If she ends up broadcasting this could get really awkward really quick."

The more Keyra watched however the more she found herself unable to look away. For some reason the fact she was watching a human-like pokemon pleasure herself didn't repulse her like she thought it would. It was having the opposite affect on her instead causing the redhead to growl to herself, "Ok, yes Kirlia's cute, but it's not normal for humans to like pokemon. This could just be her way of relieving her heat cycle or something."

Keyra slipped back into the bathroom putting her towel in the laundry and dug out her clothing for the next day. She tried to take her mind off of the image of the turquoise-haired psychic and yet she found herself leaning against the counter taking care of her own needs briefly before finishing getting dressed.

Walking back out into the bedroom Keyra was glad to see that Pearl was curled up asleep so she decided to turn in herself putting what she had seen to the back of her mind.

Gazing out at the beach Keyra sighed, she needed to have a talk with Pearl, but not yet. If it happened again she'd say something. But what was the point of embarrassing both of them over something that may of just been a one time thing. Making her way along the beach Keyra heard a call from behind her, "Hey there! Are you interested in a battle?"

Turning Keyra saw a tall woman with ash brown hair and laughing hazel eyes, "Sure, is a three on three all right with you? The name's Keyra by the way"

The brewnette smiled, I'm Alayna, and that works fine for me!"

Alayna sent out a slender lavender cat-like pokemon one Keyra recognized as an espeon and she smiled,

"Blaze! It's time for your first battle!"

The Litten landed with a yowl, the week Keyra had spent on the ferry Keyra had managed to start training the dark fire type and she was catching up nicely to the others in power though Blaze wouldn't be evolving any time soon.

"Blaze, leech life!"

Several tendrals sprouted from Blazes back Keyra knew that espeon was one of the few psychic types that was unable to teleport naturally the cat having to rely on dodging the normal way.

"Solar, use Iron tail"

The tentical-like tendrals wrapped around the psy-cat who let out a loud screech. Her tail turned metallic as she swung hard at the tendrals surrounding her. The distraction was enough for blaze who darted forward her teeth glinting as she bit down on the espeon in a passible crunch attack.

Alayna recalled the down espeon and sighed, "She only just evolved earlier today, I need to work with her on combating dark types."

Keyra smiled and recalled Blaze, "Pearl, let's go!"

Alayna smiled, "I've got something that'll stop that kirlia right in it's tracks. Persian, come on out!"

Keyra blinked, the persian didn't look like a normal one, glancing at her pokedex Keyra frowned, the alola persian was a dark type, not a normal type, "Pearl keep your distance, Dazeling gleam!"

"Persian, faint attack it!"

Pearl's body flashed rose, but before she could push out the energy wave a massive black blurr slammed into the kirlia. Turning quickly Pearl blasted the dark type who leapt back hissing. Persian's claws lengthened as it took a swipe at the kirlia who vanished before re-appearing across the makeshift field.

"Thunderbolt!"

A massive orb of lightning formed around Kirlia several bolts sparking off it. The persian darted towards Pearl it's fur getting singed along the way while sending several night slashes at the concentrating psychic type.

Keyra recalled a fainted Pearl and smiled, "Autumn, it's up to you!"

"Swana! Let's go!"

A white and blue swan hovered overhead letting out a soft cry. Autumn growled and launched a flurry of rocks at the water and flying type who just swirved around them.

"Swana, hurricane!"

"Autumn, brace yourself."

A massive gale was kicked up, sand spiraling into a tornado with the swana right in the middle of it. Autumn sank to all fours but found himself picked up and tossed around by the howling wind as well. There was a loud thump and Keyra noticed that autumn was on the ground unconscious. Recalling the forest reptile Keyra sighed, "He was completely overpowered and didn't stand a chance. And blaze won't fare any better."

Keyra glanced across the beach and sighed, "I forfit, Blaze had only hatched just over a week ago."

Alayna smiled and recalled the hovering swan. Keyra held out her pokedex sending some cash the way of the other trainer. Alayna smiled softly, "Let me guess, first loss?"

Keyra looked up frowning slightly, "Yeah how did you guess?"

"Your team is trained well, and you've learned not to tell them every little move, it took me a year to learn that, but it was obvious. You're eyes say it all. The first is always the hardest. But you always learn something from it."

Keyra grinned, "I guess that's true."

The two women made their way further up the beach and into Slateport proper. The women chatted for a while Keyra learning that Alayna was also training for the Elite four challenge which made Keyra grin, "It seems that the older trainers are all doing that."

"Some are, I've ran across a few ten year olds who are doing that too."

They both parted ways in the pokemon center and Keyra after getting her team healed headed back out, Slateport was the home of contests, and there really wasn't anything Keyra needed here. That was until she saw a small stall with a few technical machines on sale.

"Secret power?" What's that?" Keyra asked the man behind the booth.

"It's a rock-type move that has different affects based on the environment. If you're batteling in a building, the move may paralyze, if you're on a road, nothing happens, if you're in sand, like on route one hundred and eleven, your opponent's accuracy may drop. In caves it may flinch, on rocky terrain it may confuse someone, in grass it may put your opponent to sleep, and if you're in water like a pond, speed drops and out on the open sea, attack drops. It also makes a base out in the wild which is good for those days where you want to stay in one spot and have shelter from the weather."

Keyra blinked, that sounded like a quirky, but useful move, and blaze needed some versitility in her moves. Keyra smiled and picked up a secret power, as well as hidden power after she checked her team, blaze got electric, Pearl got fire and autumn got the rare dragon type. The ten thousand price tag for the 4 discs plus the scan before buying to see if she actually wanted them on her team was well worth it in her opinion. Keyra smiled and finally made her way out of the city and onward to route one hundred and ten. It wasn't that long of a trip to Mauville but there was something she wanted to do before she took on the gym there. She wanted to stop by where her parents used to work to in some small way say good bye properly. Since their bodies were still being held in stasis while the accident investigation was ongoing, there was no funeral yet, something that had angered her grandmother greatly. Keyra just wanted to see where it happened and say good bye in her own way.

Keyra sent Blaze out for some light training as well as Pearl, "Alright you two. Blaze I want you to attack purl with a light series of bites. Don't hurt her, but I'm going to try and build your guy's tolerance to moves you're weak against. Consider it resistance training. Pearl since your weakness right now is your physical defense this will help you out in more ways than one."

Both pokemon nodded and the litten lunged for Pearl who with an encouraging nod from her trainer just stood there. Litten did nothing more than tap pearl's outstretched arm with her teeth, almost as if she was play mouthing with the Kirlia. Several hours went by like this, Keyra eventually calling out autumn and having Blaze shoot tiny embers at him while he pelted the fire type with tiny pebble sized rocks. Keyra recalled Pearl and autumn as the sun was setting and she looked down at blaze, "Do you think you could use secret power on that tangled bush there? It's supposed to rain tonight and I don't feel like getting drenched."

The litten purred before a scythe of gold lanced a hole in the bush which Keyra was able to crawl through, Blaze leaping in behind her. The floor was covered with leaves and moss and the rest was larger than Keyra expected. "If secret power can make something this comfortable, I may just make camp this way every night."

Recalling Blaze after thanking her with a few scratches behind the ears Keyra finally setteled in for the night pleased at how the day's training went. Tomorrow She would continue on her way to Mauville.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter eight: The rematch

The rising sun glinted over the crystal blue water of route one hundred and ten as Keyra packed up her camp from the night before. The rainclouds had parted by morning leaving the grass glinting emerald in the morning light. Several plusul and minnen scampered past chittering happily as Keyra headed along the grassey path towards Mauville. There were very few trainers up this early so Keyra figured she would have a quick rest to check up on her team. Releasing her team Keyra held out a small handful of berries for each of them before they buckled down for the morning's training. There was progress between the three of them and Keyra knew that she would introduce this to any other team members she caught. She decided to also have them work on protect as a just in case, sometimes dodging wasn't possible so a move like protect would be good in a pinch. Protect and detect wern't moves to be relied on constantly but the glowing green sphere shield was good in a pinch situation.

Keeping an eye on her team Keyra was glad to see that Pearl had picked up protect rather quickly and was giving advice to autumn and Blaze who both had a thin transparent shield around them. It was a good start, but the two had to make it more solid it wouldn't be able to deflect a wormpul's tackle at that stage.

"Dark pulse!"

Keyra turned at the sound of a guy's voice just in time to move out of the way of a wave of black and purple energy. Following where the wave came from Keyra frowned the guy who she had battled shortly after starting her journey was standing there tossing a pokeball from hand to hand, while a black and gray wolf stood snarling beside him.

"Glad to see I got your attention. You owe me a rematch."

Glaring at Kyo Keyra was in no mood for snarky this morning, "I don't owe you anything, but if it's a battle you want, it's a battle you'll get! Autumn, you're up!"

" Mightyena, battle front!"

The two stood glaring at each other briefly as Pearl and blaze moved behind Keyra.

"Autumn, rock tomb."

"Dodge it, then sand attack!"

As autumn slammed a glowing fist into the ground causing tall spikes of rocks to erupt the mightyena swirved around them before stilling for a moment. The wolf turned and kicked up a spray of dirt causing autumn to close his eyes.

Keyra smiled all the mightyena's dodging ended up boxing in the wolfhound in a ring of rocks, "Autumn, mega drain!"

Several glowing green tendrals entangled the wolfhound's legs slamming him onto the ground before beginning to sap his energy. The mightyena howled as a wave of darkness blasted from him shattering the rocks kicking up a massive dust cloud. When the cloud cleared Keyra frowned Mightyena had a set of glowing purple fangs imbedded in autumn's side

Recalling autumn Keyra glanced down at Blaze, but as the litten stepped out Kyo returned his mightyena and sent out a small snail like pokemon with a blue and green shell.

"Shellos, surf!"

"Blaze jump into the air!"

A massive wave of water flew towards Blaze who Crouched preparing to spring away. The wave of water swamped her before she could even get off the ground.

Keyra quickly returned Blaze clipping her pokeball back to her belt as she frowned, Kyo had three or more healthy pokemon and Pearl was the only one Keyra had who could still fight. Keyra opened her mouth to forfit, but before she could Pearl had already stepped out in front of her several leaf-shaped blades of psychic energy forming.

"Pearl, magical leaf!"

The kirlia twirled sending the psychic leaves towards the ground and water type sending him back to land at Kyo's feet. Growling the raven-haired trainer sent out his Mightyena who proceeded to launch a flury of dark rings at Pearl who easily teleported out of the way. Keyra smirked the wolf was already tired from batteling autumn and with a final dazeling gleme from Pearl the wolf fell unconscious.

"Kyo calls, Scizor."

The crimson bug and steel type hissed it's claws clicking together.

"Pearl, hidden power."

Several balls of white energy formed around Kirlia which took on a faint blazing orange hue to them. While the hidden power was forming the scizor wasn't idle either, He had formed a shimmering ball between it's claws. The two attacks collided, the flash cannon overpowering the fire type hidden power sending Pearl back a good way but the training they had been doing was starting to pay off, Pearl stood back up quickly launching another volley of hidden power spheres at the crimson mantis who looked warn out after the flash cannon. Keyra figured that Kyo hadn't worked with him on enduring the drain from stronger attacks like that. The spheres slammed into the bug who fell back with a hiss. Forming another flash cannon in his claws the sphere was met by a shimmering emerald shield instead.

"Pearl, Thunderbolt!"

"Scizor, nightslash!"

Dark claws slashed through the arcs of lightning as Pearl teleported again launching a rapid flury of lightning bolts at the scizor. He may not of been a flying type, but his carapace plus the metal coat he was wearing was enough to send him face planting on the ground, his armor slightly singed. Keyra quickly recalled Pearl as Kyo returned his fallen bug. While Keyra was returning pearl's pokeball to her belt she felt something strike her on the side of the face sending her staggering back.

"You must of cheated, there is no way that pipsqueak could take out all three of my pokemon."

"And the fact your mightyena had batteled previously taking heavy damage doesn't figure in your opinion at all, or the fact your shellos was still young and had just used a rather draining move. Same for your I'm guessing newely evolved scizor?"

Kyo growled and moved to strike out at Keyra again neither realizing how close they were to the edge of the water. When Keyra ducked away she felt herself slip on a wet mossy rock and land on the ground. She felt her vision swim before a loud roar was heard. There was a flash of fire then silence. She had the faintest feeling of floating before she slipped into blackness once more.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter nine: The healing

Opening her eyes Keyra groaned. She was back in the bush base she had used as a camp and there was something staring at her, something big and black and flaming and furry. The creature purred softly and Keyra blinked in confusion. The last thing she remembered was beating Kyo then the raven-haired twelve year old punching her in the face. She thought she heard a loud roar before falling unconscious, but she wasn't sure. Blaze and autumn must have let themselves out of their pokeballs when she fell. "Blaze, is that you?"

Blaze purred again and Keyra smiled, "You, evolved. Damn you look good."

Blaze was now a quadruped, feline Pokémon with black and reddish-orange markings. Her upper half was mostly black, while her lower half was mostly red-orange. The black area had several red-orange stripes: one running up the center of her head forming a short cowlick with one horizontal stripe through the center and a slightly V-shaped stripe at the bottom of her eyes, one running down her spine with two more stripes going across it, and two rings around her tail. The lower half of her body simply had two black rings around each leg. Her forelegs seemed to be more developed than her hind legs. Each paw had three toes, but the front ones were larger with short, black claws. Her tail had several tufts of fur on the tip. Keyra idly reflected that Blaze had finally lost the kitten fluff. She half pouted, she did rather enjoy petting the silky kitten fluff. Blaze had large, yellow eyes with black sclerae and pupils that had a red tint along the bottom. There were two long tufts of fur on each of her cheeks with a shorter tuft just underneath on either side of her chin. She had a tiny, triangular gray nose and long, pointed ears with gray insides. Hanging from her neck was a round, bell-like organ, which was yellow with an orange center. Over all Blaze looked all right for having evolved a mir two weeks after being born.

Glancing over Keyra saw her grovyle standing garde at the entrence to the tangle bush and that was when she realized Pearl was sitting at her head.

"What happened?"

"My ex trainer got mad that we beat him and he hit you. You slipped and fell hitting your head on a rock. You've been unconscious for several hours and it's started raining again."

Groaning slightly Keyra pushed herself into a sitting position and felt around the back and side of her head. She did have quite a good few tender spots and she sighed softly. Adding to the discomfort she felt as if she had a massive case of vertigo. "Pearl, if I returned autumn and Blaze do you think you could teleport us to Mauville?"

Pearl nodded and Keyra recalled autumn and Blaze to their pokeballs. She felt the soft touch of Pearl's hand on her arm and the two vanished in a flash of multi-colored light.

The duo re-appeared in front of the pokemon center in a busseling city and Keyra recalled Pearl who was now leaning against her. Stepping up to the counter Keyra handed over her pokemon and looked up at the nurse, "A trainer didn't take too kindly to the fact I defeated his pokemon and got a little mad. My head feels kind of tender and according to my kirlia I was unconscious for several hours. Do you know anywhere I could get my head looked at?"

Passing Keyra's pokeballs over to a bouncing Blissey Nurse joy came around the counter and gently lead the redhead into an exam room.

"Pokemon centers aren't just to treat pokemon, we're also trained in trainer injuries as well. So let me have a look at you."

Nurse Joy held up a small light and slowly moved it across Keyra's eyes. After that She carefully ran a hand over the bruise on her cheek and applied soft pressure to the back of Keyra's head.

"You've got a minor concussion and a few bruises. You shouldn't be doing anything strenuous for a few days until it clears up. I can give you something for the dizzyness but the best thing for you is rest."

After seeing Keyra setteled in a room and sending for some pain killers and an ice pack Nurse Joy returned a short time later with her team, "They're all looking fine, though all worried about you. Your Torracat needs a few vitamins to get her to where she should physically be. She evolved a little too soon but not soon enough to cause any perminant damage. If you give her a few days worth of nutritional supplements with her normal pokemon food she'll catch up to her normal torracat size in a week to a week and a half."

Joy retreated from the room and Keyra sighed. She wasn't hungry, she was more tired than anything, but she pulled out one of the trainer meals idly noting there was something oddly comforting about a peanut butter and jelly and banana sandwich and chocolate milk. Once she was done Keyra called out her team and she smiled at the three of them, "I don't know what you guys did to or with Kyo but I'm just going to assume you either kicked his ass, or teleported him away. Thanks guys. I never expected anyone to be such a sore loser. I've got something I need to do tomorrow, but tonight I'm just going to call it in early."

Autumn Pearl and Blaze all surrounded her and Keyra started flicking through channels on the television until she came across a documentation about top ten weather videos.

"This is interesting trainer friend."

Keyra smiled over at pearl, "When I get the chance, my guilty pleasures are watching medical shows, weather shows, and shows about space. I don't think we're alone in the universe."

Autumn growled something and Pearl snickered, "The reptile says if we were alone then how are there over eight hundred of us?"

"I don't know autumn but I don't think we're the only species in this universe."

The four lay talking into the night Pearl playing translator for autumn and Blaze the four falling asleep several hours later.

Several days went by and Keyra had finally been cleared to travel by Nurse joy. She headed out of the pokemon center and took the western path out of the city, the sun was bright and Keyra sighed softly to herself.

Turning off the well traveled path on route one hundred and fifteen Keyra made her way along a paved stone path. She knew where she was going, but didn't really understand why. She knew there was nothing there of her parent's daycare, but she still wanted to see for herself. She knew it was irrational but she found that she didn't really care. She just wanted to see it and in some way, say good bye to her parents. Stepping through a break in the trees Keyra sighed, there was nothing here not even a burnt out husk of a building. Well no there was something here actually, a lone rosalia who appeared to be tending to the flowers that stood in front of where the door used to be. The grass type looked so pieceful and Keyra wondered what it was doing here. She sent Pearl out of her pokeball and kept her voice quiet, "Can you find out, what that rosalia is doing here? It seems kind of odd it's here all by itself."

Pearl danced over to the small grass type who crooned softly. Pearl Glanced over at Keyra as her eyes flashed, "She would often tend to the flowers here. She's confused where the building and the people went since they always gave her such nice pokemon food, but she still continued to tend to the flowers hoping the people here would come back."

Keyra sat down as she glanced from pearl to the rosalia, "The people who were here and who's flowers you took care of, were my parents. They died a few months ago in an accident, but I think they'd love to know you're still looking after their garden for them."

The rosalia drooped sadly and Keyra had a thought this rosalia didn't seem like it wanted to battle, but it loved tending plants. And she did want to find a companion to help her grandmother out.

"Hey, Rosalia? I was wondering, my grandmother lives alone, and she's had a hard time taking care of her garden as of late, would you like me to catch you and you can go help her out? She would take really good care of you."

The rosalia twirled around happily and Keyra pulled out one of her spare pokeballs tapping the rose pokemon lightly on the head. She recalled Pearl and made her way back to the pokemon center. A quick call with professor birch later and Keyra phoned home.

"Keyra! Is everything all right?"

"It's all right gram, I just found a young rosalia tending the garden outside of where my parent's daycare used to be. She said that she did that for them, and my parents would feed her. She wasn't interested in batteling, and I thought she could help you out with your garden."

The elderly woman smiled, "You didn't have to do that angel, but it's appreciated all the same!"

Keyra smiled and placed the ball on the teleporter. In a flash of rainbow light The woman smiled as she released the small grass and poison type.

"Hello there Rosalia. My granddaughter tells me you would like to look after my garden?"

The small rose pokemon spun around scattering a few blue and red flower petals in her happyness.

Keyra smiled as the woman ended the call and turned to the door She had done what she came here to do, and it was time to move on.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter ten: The shock

Trapinch was an orange, insectoid Pokémon. He had a round body with a white underside and four stumpy legs. He had a proportionally large head, small eyes, and a zigzagging mouth. His large jaws appeared to be powerful enough to crush boulders.

Keyra looked down at the small pokemon in front of her after replacing her pokedex and she wondered why this one was so far south on route one hundred and eleven. The desert wasn't that far off, but then again the area around the rest of the route was rather sandy and rocky so maybe it wasn't that far of a stretch to find a trapinch this far from the desert. The ant lion pokemon was busy chewing on a rock and Keyra couldn't pass up a chance to have a potential power house on her team.

She had left the pokemon center early that morning, and headed north out of the city in the hopes of finding a fourth member for her team. She had searched for several hours, but geodude and nosepass didn't appeal to her. She was about to head back into town when she caught sight of this little guy gnawing on a rock.

"Autumn, let's do this! Leaf blade!"

Keyra released her starter who dove for the distracted ground type his leaves glowing green. The trapinch let go of the rock he was gnawing on and dove underground before the leaf blade hit.

"Wait for it to come up then leaf blade again."

The ground trembeled slightly before the trapinch came darting out slamming into autumn's stomach. The grovyle turned and slashed a twin flury of leaves at the small insectoid who landed on the ground. Keyra enlarged a pokeball and sent it towards the downed ground type. The ball rocked slightly, a few sparks coming off of it before it stilled with a ding. Retrieving it Keyra smiled, she had captured her fourth pokemon. Well fifth if you counted the rosalia she had sent over to her grandmother yesterday.

Calling out the tired ground type Keyra crouched down softly stroking the trapinch's head. When the small ground type noticed this it opened it's jaws and lightly clamped down on Keyra's arm.

Wincing Keyra carefully disengaged his teeth from her arm thankful to realize that it didn't break the skin.

"Hey trapinch... My arm. Isn't. Breakfast."

Pearl cooed softly as she looked at her trainer after letting herself out of her pokeball, "he says, and I quote, that rock was my breakfast. You distracted me and made the rock roll away... You lost me my breakfast. So I gnawed on you."

Keyra laughed softly continuing to scratch the ground type on the top of his head, "If you agree to come with me and be a part of my team, I'll give you more tasty things than rocks for breakfast. How about it trapinch?"

Trapinch nodded and Keyra continued, "Would you like a nickname, your other team mates have one."

At the trapinch's nod Keyra started listing off names until the ant lion lightly headbutted her.

"So I take it you like Dusk? All right we can work with that! Now I'm going to recall you and then we're going to get the rest of my day started. I hope you're up for a gym battle later on."

Keyra recalled Pearl, autumn and Dusk before returning to the pokemon center. It was time to get ready for her third gym badge and she was determined to get it. With the gym leader's use of magnimite and magniton Keyra figured it would be best for pearl to sit this battle out. Blaze and Dusk would hopefully clench it for her, but she decided to keep autumn in reserve just in case.

Heading up the stone pathway to the gym Keyra grinned, it was the brightest gym she'd seen, Rustboro was gray, Dewford was in a cave so that didn't count, but this, it was a bright electric yellow blue and green. Keyra shook her head, "Remind me to find out why this building looks like a paint can puked all over it."

Stepping inside the gym all Keyra could hear was the humm of electric lights. There was an elivated battle field and she took the lift up to field level.

Stepping into the trainer box Keyra smirked as a man walked into the center of the field. Next to him was a small green and yellow pokemon who was chewing on the man's pant leg. Laughing softly the man recalled the small eletric dog.

"I assume you're here for a gym battle? Oh who am I kidding you wouldn't be standing there otherwise. Is a three on three all right with you? My electrik is a bit under the weather."

Keyra nodded mentally sighing in relief since she hadn't planned with Pearl for this. A flash of light lit up watson's side of the field and a small blue and gray magnet floated there. Calling out Dusk Keyra smiled, She knew that magnamite was immune to ground attacks, but she saw something in the ground type's arsonal that might help with that. Keyra realized that if she could just wear down the steel type, then the lower it got to the ground, then Dusk's ground moves may just work.

"Magnamite, super sonic!"

"Dusk dodge with dig, then roll into a super power!"

The magnets on the side of the steel type's body began to vibrate and waves of faintly hued silver energy soared towards Trapinch. Dusk dove under ground to evade the sound waves then tucked himself into a ball launching out of the whole his body glowing orange and slamming into the magnamite's body.

"Sonic boom!"

"Dusk, crunch it!"

Dusk's teeth glinted briefly before he clampped down on the knob on top of magnamite's head. A loud boom ratteled the windows as Dusk went flying landing on his back in front of her. He was looking a little ratteled, but he did what she hoped, due to shear force and crunch being stronger than normal, the floating magnet was hovering near the ground. A sign that the steel type was tired.

"Dusk, bulldoze!"

Dusk spun kicking up a wall of dirt before righting himself and trundling towards the struggling magnet. He wasn't fast in this stage, but he was strong. The wall of stone and dirt crashed over magnamite like an earthen wave of water and Watson recalled the downed duel type.

"Magnamite is one of my newer pokemon. But now you're going to face one who is far stronger than it. Mainectrik, let's go!"

Keyra recalled Dusk who was panting and sent out autumn instead the grovyle roared a challenge and the mainectrik roared a challenge in response.

"Discharge!"

"Autumn, ground it."

Autumn's tail glowed which he dug into the ground causing the bolts of blue lightning to scatter and Keyra grinned, She was glad she had managed to teach both autumn and Blaze iron tail for situations like this.

"Autumn, trap it with rock tomb, then grass whistle!"

A loud roar was all that answered Keyra as rocks burst up around the field, the mainectrik weaving around with quick-attack to dodge. When autumn was done levering up stones and the electric wolf was surrounded by stones, autumn held the holly leaf up to his mouth and a haunting melody filled the gym. Mainectrik's eyes closed and she fell over onto her side snoring. At Keyra's nod autumn dove in delivering twin leaf blades to the sleeping electric type who twitched slightly before relaxing into unconsciousness.

"Magnaton! Let's go. Tri-attack!"

A trio of magnets appeared in a flash all three spinning as a triangular beem of energy flew towards autumn. The grovyle turned but the attack was still able to graze his back. When it cleared Keyra could see a burn on the grass starter's back.

"Au screech!"

With the attack drop that burn would cause Keyra knew that she had to drop the magnet's sturdy offenses. Autumn rubbed his arm blades together causing the air to be filled with rings of sound. While Magnaton was distracted autumn dove in with a glowing green orb of hidden power.

"Thunder."

A flash of thunder filled the room and when the light cleared autumn was on the ground twitching as he tried to stand.

"You've done enough, Blaze can finish this!"

Keyra quickly recalled the stubbern grass type smiling down at his pokeball, "You fought well but I don't want to see you hurt needlessly."

In a final flash of light the black and orange dark fire type was standing in front of her, Blaze's eyes glinting slightly.

"Flame thrower. Arch it."

The bell-shaped organ around blaze's neck flashed and the torracat unleashed an arch of white hot flame. Magneton wirred loudly as it tried to dodge the arching flames before it turned into what Keyra recognized as a gyro ball. With the speed it was going Keyra knew Blaze couldn't dodge in time, "Cloak yourself in flames."

The fur over Torracat's body flickered as flames surrounded her. They billowed higher as the magnaton bowled her over both taking damage Blaze coming out of that slightly better off however.

"Secret power!"

A blade of gold slammed into the magnet pokemon sending it bouncing off the ground. As Blaze followed up the secret power attack with a second more tightly focused flamethrower aimed for the center of the magnaton's formation. With a massive discharge of energy The magnaton fell to the ground sparks shooting from it causing the gym leader to recall it with a sigh.

"That was oddly unorthadox, overloading the natural magnit pull with flames, but it was affective. I'm pleased to reward you with the dynamo badge."

Accepting the badge Keyra smiled, she only needed five more badges before she could take on the elite four. Recalling her tired feline Keyra made her way back to the pokemon center. She would rest the night and head towards lavaridge in the morning. She would take some time to give Dusk a good bit of training which the small ground type needed. She hoped he would evolve into a vabrava before the next gym which would allow him a better degree of maneuverability. There was a good deal of training in her team's future but Keyra knew none of them minded. It just bought them all closer to their goal.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter eleven: The chimney

Keyra stood staring up at the smoking mountain that was Mount Chimney, and it sure looked like one. The volcano was belching steam and gas at an insane rate Keyra often wondered just what would happen if it erupted since she couldn't remember anything ever being spoken about in school and yet she knew it had erupted before. Maybe there was a pokemon who could hold back the eruption, or deflect it or something, A fire type, or several fire types or maybe several psychic types. Keyra then reflected, that maybe the stories about legendary pokemon looking out for their regions was true and since this was the only volcano here, that the contenent pokemon groudon was sleeping there. "Great if groudon really is sleeping in there, then all the gas has got to either be it snoring, farting or belching. Great a volcano is a legendary bedroom."

As she continued up the path Keyra's internal monologue got even more amusing. Stopping at a small building she knew she had to take a cable car up to the top so she could make it to lavaridge.

Standing in line at the cable car station Keyra seriously wondered how something big and boxy actually stayed up. It made no logical sense to her, but then again she was a pokemon trainer, not an engineer. Setteling back against one of the window seats Keyra sighed and called out Dusk since there were other smaller pokemon out for the hour and a half ride.

Dusk curled up on the seat next to her and Keyra started idly scratching the flat top of his head. Laying her head back Keyra failed to notice a small cheerful fluttering fairy flutter over next to the trapinch.

Dusk blinked open an eye gazing at the grass type who held out a small pink candy while gesturing to a bag that was left opened and had spilled out several more. Dusk took the candy then noticing the distracted half asleep state of her trainer slipped off the seat to go eat more of the good odd pink candies.

Keyra blinked as she felt dusk slide off the seat and she glanced around spying him with his head in another trainer's bag. Hissing furiously Keyra called to the apparently munching ant lion pokemon, "Dusk, get out of there those aren't yours."

The man who's foot was next to the bag glanced down and chuckeled softly, "It was my fault for leaving the bag down there in the first place. And it's probably also the fault of my Floette, she likes sharing my rare candies with other pokemon." The man picked up his bag and laughed at the grumpy look on dusk's face. Keyra's pokedex beeped and she looked down, "Trapinch has gained the moves sandstorm and earthquake."

A bright light filled the car causing conversation to stop as Dusk crooned as he was enveloped in a blue-white light. When the light faded dusk had grown a fair bit and the newely evolved vibrava churped landing on Keyra's head.

Vibrava was a dragonfly-like Pokémon. He had a small head with two yellow antennae and green bulging eyes with black oval-shaped pupils. His mouth had two large white teeth protruding from each side. He had a skinny yellow body, four skinny black legs with slender feet, and four green, rhombus-shaped wings with black edges. Keyra also noticed similarly-colored rhombus shapes at the end of his tail.

Shaking her head and feeling the press of small claws Keyra looked back over at the man, "How much do I owe you for the candy?"

"As I said, it was my fault for leaving them where my Floette could get them. Pokemon are strongly attracted to the candy and the benefits they have can't be ignored either as in the case of your vibrava. He looks well on his way to being a formidible dragon type when he finally evolves into flygon."

The man zipped up his bag after trashing the empty candy wrappers and Keyra looked up at dusk who chittered back at her.

"You do know stealing is wrong right?"

Another chitter and Keyra sighed, Don't give me that chittering backtalk, you're going to be hyper for a week plus. Good thing I was planning on using you and blaze and pearl in the next gym. But seriously. Please don't think with your stomach."

Keyra's pokedex beeped again informing her that dusk had just picked up dragonbreath. She knew that after he evolved he like flygon would have the sand vail ability instead of shear force so dragonbreath would now be able to paralyze and that would help a good deal." Glancing out the window Keyra watched as the green slopes of the mountain slowly faded into gray stone. Keyra was able to make out thin streams of fire slowly curling then uncurling over stone before fading back into small crags. It was a gloomy place, and yet Keyra knew there were fire types who called this desolate place, home. A thin gray haze hung over the place and Keyra caught sight of several camrupt and a few torcoal roaming around from rock to rock. All of a sudden the cable car stopped and appeared to rock slightly in mid air.

Recalling dusk Keyra sent out pearl and noticed that there were now several other psychic pokemon out as well. There was a loud hum and the car jolted sending people stumbling. "Pearl, if this thing falls think you and the others can catch this with psychic so no one gets hurt?"

"The other psychic pokemon have already mentioned that to me so that's the plan."

The kirlia landed on the seat next to Keyra who squinted, "when had the windows gotten clouded over with smoke..."

At that moment, a voice came over the cable car's personal address system and it made Keyra shutter involuntarily, "Team Arrow appologizes for the delay in your trip, but this is the end of the line. This volcano is going to blow in twenty minutes since some pokemon need a wake up call. And we're just the ones to do it. This is Team Arrow admin Henrey signing off and wishing you all a wonderful afterlife."

After the speaker clicked off pearl glanced at the other psychics who all flashed teleporting everyone in the car down to safety. Glancing around Keyra realized they had all been teleported to Lavaridge and she could still see thick black smoke billowing from the mountain. "Pearl, can you teleport me up there? We need to stop this otherwise many people are going to die."

"Wait, I'll go with you."

Keyra turned to see the rare candy man from the cable car, "My name's Ray, and you're going to need help. There's no time for the authorities to be informed and still save people's lives."

A green-haired pokemon with red eyes and small blades on his elbows appeared, causing pearl to blink, "Gallade, can you help Kirlia to teleport us up there?"

The gallade nodded and the two trainers were gone in a flash.

When the light faded Keyra and Ray found themselves in a room with a scientist tied up glaring at two Team Arrow goons.

"Gallade. Knock them out, Hypnosis!"

Gallade's eyes flashed as Keyra sent out autumn to cut the ties of the scientist who fell to the ground in a near boneless heap.

"Thank you. Team Arrow has a meteor that I was studying. They're going to turn it into energy to fuel a machine that can disrupt the lava here. They want to wake up one of the legendaries, but I don't know why. If they wake up groudon, this place is going to go into one fuck of a drout."

The two trainers ran out of the building and right into a massive whirling machine that appeared to have a glowing golden rock inside it. "Pearl can you lift out the rock and shut that machine down?"

In answer pearl's eyes flashed blue as the glowing golden meteor was pulled out of the machine. Ray took the rock and tucked it into his bag. A loud explosion came from behind them and both trainers glared at the snarling houndoom and grinning crobat behind them.

"Gallade, psychic on crobat."

"Pearl, disarming voice on houndoom!"

Both psychic types launched their attacks only to have the two across from them dodge. A tall man hidden in shadows snapped his fingers and the two pokemon fired twin dark pulses at the psychic duo.

"Teleport into close combat!"

"Pearl get onto crobat and psychic."

Both duel psychic types vanished only to re-appear a moment later, Houndoom let out a loud howl before taking an uppercut to the jaw and a low sweeping kick to his hind legs. Gallade finished the flurry of attacks with an elbow to the stomach. Pearl landed on the poison type's back who flipped trying to throw her off and only ended up falling pray to a concentrated psychic assault. Teleporting away from the poison bat Pearl smirked and sent the bat hurteling into the shadowy figure who still hadn't made themselves known. The figure recalled their pokemon, "This. Isn't over."

Returning into the building where the scientist was straightening up spilled papers, Ray handed the meteor back to him before turning to Keyra, "Do you want a teleport back to lavaridge?"

"I had hoped to give my team some experience batteling the fire types around here before challenging the gym. But I do appreciate the offer."

Gallade teleported Ray back to town and Keyra exited the building, The sky was still full of smoke although it was rapidly fading. "Team Arrow again, what did they want to go messing about with the weather for. That would just fuck up the natural balance of the region. Or even possibly the entire world."

Making her way down the mountain Keyra was glad to realize that though the sky was smoke filled the air at ground level was breathable. She decided that this would be a good place to train for a few days so she found herself a sturdy massive bolder to set up camp in. She would train a bit then take on the gym leader for her fourth badge. She knew that fire types were pretty well balanced in terms of defense but she also knew making physical contact with some of them such as slugma or magmar would burn with direct body to body contact. She setteled down with her team to make plans for the upcoming fire fight hoping she wasn't to go out in a blaze of glory.

Dusk was going to be one of her main combatents in this battle with distance eating ground and dragon moves. Blaze could fight fire with fire, and was immune to burns. His dark type moves and the rock typing of secret power could come in handy as well. Pearl could rely on special attacks and sleep status autumn well, autumn would be a bit of a liability unless the gym leader pulled something out of her ass like another grass type to combat the mirid of water types she usually faced or something else equally obscure. Either way, Keyra would train and her team would be as ready as they could be.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter Twelve, The Heat

"Dusk rock slide!"

A flash of green zoommed by buzzing slightly past Keyra's head as large rocks began to fall. The magmar in front of them let out a roar and a pillar of fire shot from it's open mouth which dusk barrol rolled over. The rocks crashed around the spitfire pokemon who burst out the flames around him rather subdued.

"Earthquake!"

Dusk slammed his tail on the ground sending a shockwave around the area making the magmar stumble before it turned and trundled back into a nearby lava pool. Dusk flew back over and held out his tail which Keyra lightly slapped in a strange paridy of a high five.

Recalling the dragonfly pokemon Keyra ran a hand through her hair which over the past few days had become streeked with soot Keyra made her way back to the small cleft of rocks her and her team were using as a camp. A week had passed since the attack on mount Chimney and in that week Keyra learned just what kept the volcanofrom blasting sky high and taking the entire northwestern part of Hoen with it. The multitude of fire types and the few roving ground types who called this place home converted the geothermal energy of the magma and other seismic activity into energy for their own use. She saw a magcargo wounded in a battle with a camrupt crawl into a lava flow and absorb the molten rock healing itself. Ducking into the cleft of the rock Keyra saw her grovyle and kirlia trading blows the grass type sliding under bolts of electricity while countering the fire type hidden power spheres with well timed eruptions of rock. Dusk had spent a day explaining the mechanics behind rock slide to the grass type and Keyra was pleased to see how quickly autumn was picking it up. Pearl had improved on the defensive side of things she was now able to stand up to one of blaze's bite attacks and a mid level fury cutter from autumn. The training she'd been undergoing had an extra benefit, pearl was slowly developing muscles and slowly becoming better at taking hits. And with the use of heal pulse she could last longer than she used to back around dewford.

Blaze had spent the time increasing the power behind her attacks focusing on her darker half and dusk was getting used to his new able to fly form picking up aerial ace from autumn. He had also been able to teach the torracat dig and autumn had picked up earthquake. Keyra felt that she was finally ready for the gym battle against flanary so had decided to pack up camp and make her way down the mountain path towards the town. Making her way down the gently sloped mountain trail Keyra noticed that from a higher elevation Lavaridge looked like a flattened candle flame the buildings were all various shades of red and orange and a few hints of yellow thrown in for good measure. Keyra stepped into the pokemon center noticing a hallway that wasn't normally there in other ones. Her curiosity getting the better of her She slipped out the door and came to the base of a slightly sloping paved stone path.

Following the path Keyra came to what appeared to be a changing room for something. Stopping a passing woman she found out that this was the changing room for the lavaridge hot springs which had healing powers for human and pokemon alike. Shrugging her shoulders Keyra decided to see what these springs were all about. Releasing her team the five stepped out into a hillside dotted with various colored grottos. Keyra had slipped into a simple one piece black swimsuit and reading the signs posted next to each series of springs Keyra and her team made their way to a pool that seemed to of been formed from ice blue crystals. Looking at blaze and dusk Keyra grinned, "It's said this spring is safe for fire types with in reason as well as ground types. But I'm not going to force."

Keyra's words were cut off after blaze swamped her with a massive wave of warm water. There was a ledge running around the spring that she could lay on and not get her fire organ wet too much. Dusk had no such problem. His dragon typing seemed to make him not mind the water as much as most ground types and autumn and pearl were just happy to spend time with Keyra. The four pokemon and one woman spent some time soaking and relaxing after the hard week of training and all five returned down to the pokemon center in much better spirits. Requesting a room from the nurse at the desk Keyra flung her wet swimsuit over the shower bar and sprawled on the bed not even bothering to put on her night clothes. She was in one of those slightly rebellious moods where she just wanted to relax naked for a change so that's what she did. It wasn't long until she slipped into a deep slumber.

It was early the next morning when Keyra woke up, the clock on the nightstand read half past eight and Keyra knew that she would be one of the first ones at the gym this early. Hitching up her usual traveling outfit and adjusting the belt around her waist Keyra headed out of the pokemon center and made her way to the tall building in the southwest corner of town. She idly had the thought that someone must of had too much time on their hands since the building was painted like the swirling red flames of a fire spin and Keyra groaned, red was pretty but this was. Too much of it. "And I'm a fucking redhead. And this is too much red."

Stepping into the building Keyra growled. The only thing she could see was fog, steam, and she could of sworn that she could make out royaling heat from somewhere. As she moved deeper into the gym Keyra felt herself be launched into the air and land on something soft a moment later. She realized then that that was some sort of steam powered teleporter since she couldn't see the door she had just come in. Continuing on Keyra felt the floor give way and landed on something else soft, she figured as well that it was some form of psychic barrior so people didn't actually get hurt. "Teleporters like this are all well and good so no one gets hurt, but the minor heart attack every time it happens is enough to make anyone freak out."

There were several trainers who appeared from guisers out of the floor, a few keckleon and slugma as well as the odd meditite fell as Keyra and her team slowly made their way deeper, or was it lower... Or maybe it was higher into the gym, Keyra was starting to lose all sense of direction now. She finally noticed a platform that seemed to be hovering over a bed of flames with a redheaded woman sitting in the middle of the platform watching her.

"So, glad to see you could take the heat. But what happens when you jump out of the frying pan and into the fire. This will be a four on four battle. You can substitute your pokemon, I. Can not. Are you ready?"

Keyra stepped up the stairs and felt the platform sway slightly, "I am ready."

"Let's go, wisgash!"

Keyra blinked, she was right. Flanary did have something to combat the ground types. She probably figured no one was fool enough to bring a grass type to a fire gym. But Keyra had gambled on that and she was given a lucky break. A ground and water type which means a quadruple weakness to grass!

"Autumn! Battle zone!"

Flanary frowned and Keyra noticed a brief flicker of worry flit across her face.

"Wisgash ice beam!"

"Autumn, down and bullet seed to counter."

Autumn ducked the oncoming beam of icy energy and formed several glowing seeds pushing back the ice beam causing it to veer off course and into the fire.

"Leaf blade!"

"Wisgash, mud slap!"

Autumn leapt through the steam slashing at the spray of mud with one glowing blade and the water fish with a second. A ball of sky blue energy formed in the wisgash's jaws and autumn was sent flying by what Keyra figured must of been either flying type or ice type hidden power.

"Mega drain."

A mass of glowing green tendrals ensnared Wisgash and Flanery quickly recalled him.

"I keep him in reserve. He's taken out surprised trainers since they expect only fire types. The higher level gyms have to keep trainers on their toes somehow. But wisgash hasn't been with me long. So even though he's in his final form he and I have a lot of work to do. Round two! Let's go slugma!"

Keyra grinned over at autumn, "Rock Slide!"

Keyra knew she should of recalled the wood gecko, but she wanted to see how their resistance training was fairing against a fellow trainer.

"Lava ploom!"

A mass of silver enveloped autumn for a moment before dispersing and forming several large medium and some smaller rocks but the fire slug just let the rocks surround her before the rocks turned red hot and the mass of magma blasted back at autumn. The grovyle landed hard and Keyra quickly recalled him, "That strong of an attack from that small a pokemon, she must be close to evolving. We can work on that. Pearl your turn! Hypnosis!"

"Slugma, yawn!"

A ball of pink energy formed in front of the slugma's mouth as pearl's eyes flashed. The fire slug's eyes closed and Pearl swayed slightly.

"Psychic. Slam it!"

"Pearl raised a hand, Slugma being surrounded in a blue glow before she slammed the sleeping pokemon into the ceiling then the floor and back between the ceiling and floor again. The orange fire slug lay there unmoving and once the grip of psychic faded Pearl slumpt to the ground.

Keyra recalled her psychic fairy and blaze appeared on the field with a torracat roar. Opposite her was a towering cammrupt and Keyra tried not to gulp. She realized the kid gloves were off now and clenched her fists, They had to win this.

The volcano pokemon and not so tiny feline growled at each other both posturing slightly and Keyra couldn't figure out why. She decided to start things off, "Blaze, toxic!"

Given the sturdy ground and fire type appeared to be a whole magnatude stronger than the slugma and wisgash Keyra needed to ware it down and toxic was just the way to go.

"Camrupt, ember it."

Blaze coughed up balls of purple gooh a few stray hairs inside them towards the camel who combated them with small shots of ember. Keyra made a note to never pick up any of her torracat's hairballs since those didn't look even remotely pleasant. Blaze started darting around the volcano camel who wasn't fast enough to turn and meet the toxic spheres in time which allowed several to pepper his sides before completing her ring and purring at the larger fire type.

"Camrupt, magnatude!"

"Blaze, jump onto Camrupt's back!"

Camrupt raised up on his back legs slamming his front legs down with a crash as a shock wave of energy spread out over the field. The magnatude was farely weak which allowed blaze to leap over it and onto the camrupt's back where she dug in her claws. "Secret power!"

The rock type move slammed down on one of the dome-like volcanic humps on the camrupt's back at the same time several purple lightning bolts caused the massive pokemon to flinch. "Blaze, crunch it then leap off it!"

"Throw it off Camrupt!"

The volcanic camel circled around bucking his back trying to dislodge the fire cat who kept clinging on for a moment longer. Blaze leaned over and sank her teeth into the back of Camrupt's neck before leaping off. The ground and fire type bellowed as a blast of fire came from the field below surrounding the dark and fire type who just sat there and purred.

"Dark pulse!"

"Flame thrower!"

The two attacks met in the middle causing a massive explosion sending both pokemon skidding back. Blaze pushed herself back to her paws and glared over at the camrupt. He tried to push back to his feet but another flash of purple lightning caused him to fall over with a groan. Flanary recalled the duel ground and fire type and removed her last pokeball from her belt, "Torcoal, your turn!"

The fire turtle appeared with a loud cry and a blast of steam from his shell, "Overheat!"

A pillar of white hot flame blazed from the fire around the field as Torcoal's eyes glowed a fiery red. A blast of blue white flame formed over his shell and Keyra knew that blaze wouldn't be able to dodge it in time, "Blaze... Protect!"

A muttered cuss came from across the field as a glittering green dome formed around blaze as the overheat impacted. Keyra smirked knowing that the torcoal's special attacks won't be as strong now though she was sure there were some physical attacks to back up the coal pokemon.

"Body slam!"

Tucking himself into a ball Torcoal rolled towards blaze who yowled as the speedy tordus sent her skidding away. Keyra recalled the unconscious fire type and threw out dusk's ball, the dragonfly appearing with a happy chitter.

"Rock slide!"

"Iron defense!"

A series of rocks formed overhead as Torcol's shell flashed silver. The coal pokemon pulled himself inside allowing the rocks to bounce off his shell with a metallic clang.

"Dusk, dragonbreath!"

A blast of blue flames formed in the vibrava's jaws and sped towards the unballing fire type, small sparks shooting off of it. The flames struck Torcoal who had just emerged from his shell sending blue streeks of lightning across him. Keyra smirked, this battle was hers now. "Dusk, earthquake!"

Slamming his tail into the ground dusk sent a wave of golden energy towards Torcoal who let out a bellow as a green shield formed around him.

"Don't get cocky yet. You've not won yet." Torcoal, hidden power!"

"Dusk earthquake again!"

A ball of blue energy hurteled towards the dragonfly and Keyra frowned, dusk's dragon typing would negate some damage from a water type hidden power plus it's not as strong as a water attack from an actual water type, Dusk, take it and follow through with earthquake."

A massive wave of gold energy spread out from the impact point of dusk's tail sending torcoal flying at the same time the energy from hidden power sent dusk spiraling from the air and into the field with a hard slam. When the steam cleared dusk was standing on his claws his tail lashing while one of his wings looked bent at an odd angle while Torcoal lay with his eyes closed. The two redheads recalled their pokemon and Flanary strode over to Keyra handing her a small badge, "Congradulations you've managed to earn the heat badge! As well as the TM for overheat. Use it well."

Keyra accepted the badge and the technical machine and bowing to the fire type gym leader exited the gym from a well placed teleport pad. Returning to the pokemon center for one more night to allow her team to heal as well as Dusk's wing to be seen to Keyra smiled, "Four down, four to go."


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter thirteen: The imbalance

Stretching her back Keyra pushed herself up from the moss bed she had spent the night in. It had been several days since she and her team had left Lavaridge and Keyra had decided to take a slightly longer route back to petelburg for her fifth gym badge. There were no good training places there so she had asked Pearl to teleport to just outside Falarbor town and Keyra would spend some time around meteor falls training her team some more. Keyra noticed that autumn had been turning a deeper shade of green and his leaves were starting to broaden out at the tail in the past few days a sign that the wood gecko was close to evolving. It was a thought that made her eye the rest of her team. More specifically pearl.

"You have been on the team almost as long as autumn but you don't seem to show any signs of evolving any time soon."

"A psychic type's powers grow substantially when they reach their final form. I'm not at the point of being able to handle the influx of psychic and fairy energys evolving would grant me. Nor is my body mature enough. When you were attacked back in the petelburg woods autumn and me wanted to help you. There's no set time when a pokemon is ready to evolve. It's when the pokemon feels their ready and when the pokemon's energy is stable enough to handle it."

Keyra blushed she was told that back in Rustboro and she had accidentally forgotten. The fact that autumn was close to evolving made her sure that it would more than likely happen durring their gym battle. Her team didn't hold any particular advantage or disadvantage over normal types though normal types could learn a wide aray of moves. Keyra figured sticking with status moves was still the best way to go so she spent time working on dusk's dragonbreath as well as her team's all around strength and power. Keyra was glad to see that autumn could stand up to a nearly full power flamethrower from blaze and pearl was able to take a full powered faint attack and crunch from dusk. Dusk was able to stand up to pearl's dazzeling gleam at full power along with blaze as well. Packing up Keyra made a mental note to invest in some things to make these training binges easier like a camp stove some more food supplies and Keyra had also read about weights you could use to train your pokemon to get them stronger, make them faster, and build up their defenses. Keyra had a few unused technical machines she would sell since overheat wasn't part of a stratagy she liked accept as a last resort move. Shock-wave while useful didn't actually fit on her team accept pearl, though Keyra thought she may just give pearl that to snipe at flying types in the Fortree gym.

It was the middle of the day when Keyra made it to the entrence to meteor falls, and stepped inside. The cave was formed out of various crystals that caught and refracted light around lighting the main cavern up allowing Keyra to spy the massive waterfall that flowed out of the mouth of a massive cave. The pathway was straight forward and often used by trainers looking for a quick way back to Rustboro. The several solrock and luniton stayed out of her way which Keyra wasn't happy about, she wanted to get her team some training against them since they were the team of the Mosdeep gym leaders and were notoriously hard to defeat which is why no one challenged them until they had at least five badges. Keyra was half tempted to do just that after getting her next badge this way her team would be more prepared for facing Wynona of the Fortree gym and her flying types. The more she thought about that the more Keyra found that was a rather good idea. She would hang around fortree to see if any pokemon there caught her interest then make her way to lilycove and see about catching a ferry to Mosdeep unless she was lucky enough to make it there at one of the sea pokemon migration seasons. She knew that waylord, Walrein and Gyrados had their yearly migrations coming up in the next few months so catching one of the three would be a major help.

Exiting out the other end of Meteor Falls Keyra grimased the light in the cave was cool and soothing but on this side given the proximity to the beach she got sun glare right in the face. Sending out pearl Keyra crouched down, "Think you can teleport me to the other side of petalburg woods? The spot near the boat house that we took to Dewford?"

Pearl nodded her eyes glowing white and in a flash of multi-colored light Keyra found herself a day's walk out of Petelburg.

"Oi there! You up for a battle?"

Keyra turned to see a woman with deeply tanned skin and curly hair tossing a pokeball in the air.

"Sure! I could use it after all this walking."

"Blaze, Let's do this!"

"Blitzle, shine time!"

A sparking zebra landed in front of the woman with a winnie as blaze appeared with a loud yowl.

"Nice Torracat! Name's Dora,"

"I've never seen a blitzle before! And thanks. Raised her from an egg. Name's Keyra."

The two smiled before finally starting off the battle.

"Blitzle, wild charge!"

"Blaze, crunch it."

A thin aura of blue lightning surrounded the zebra as Blitzle started galloping towards blaze. The alolan fire starter let out a roar before meeting the charging zebra with a mouth full of sharp pointy cat teeth.

"Blitzle, throw it!"

Blitzle reared up sending blaze flying before the zebra turned and slammed two glowing hooves into the torracat.

Keyra winced as blaze didn't move after that and she quickly recalled her, "Damn that blitzle is strong."

"He's pretty close to evolving I was hoping this battle would give him the push he needed."

Dora smiled recalling the prancing zebra as the two quickly headed back into Petelburg to get their pokemon seen to. Keyra passed her pokedex over Dora's sending some credits her way and the two parted ways. Keyra headed to the training field out back of the pokemon center and called out her team.

"Alright guys, I've overheard that the battle for the balance badge is a double battle, I want you all to work on sparring with each other, swapping partners every so often. I'm not sure who I'm going to use in this battle yet, I'll probably figure it out when it's closer to time."

Pearl and autumn were first up against dusk and blaze. Both pairs spent a bit of time talking in their own way before autumn formed a protective shield and pearl let out a full body flash which sent blaze and dusk skidding back. The other two looked at each other before blaze formed his own protective shield while the ground rolled from dusk's earthquake. Autumn leapt up the side of a light poll as pearl teleported behind the other two.

After some time and trading more blows the groups switched with pearl and blaze changing places.

After a few hours and several different matchups later Keyra smiled. She had gone into the pokemon center and returned with bowls of her team's favorite food enough to boost their energy for the upcoming gym battle. As her team ate like a snorlax on an eating spree Keyra took the time to observe the four of them. She knew that autumn only needed a small push to evolve so he was deffenatly one of her choices. The other came down to who could weather hits better. Blaze didn't have any spread attacks and pearl's defense still needed work which left dusk. Keyra nodded to herself they would compliment each other well if she couldn't paralyze with dragon breath then autumn could knock them out with grass whistle. She couldn't figure out how to avoid autumn taking damage from dusk's sandstorm even though chip damage would work and improve his ability to dodge. Leaning back on the bench Keyra couldn't help but snicker as dusk was being chased around the field by blaze after the vibrava stole blaze's food. The torracat let out a loud yowl as the dragonfly hovered just out of reach with her food bowl

"Oi, you two. That's enough. Dusk, give blaze back her food. I get you're a hungry little monster, but that's blaze's food. If you want more, I'll give you more."

After a little more time outside and having to rescue dusk who had somehow gotten his refilled foodbowl stuck on his head Keyra recalled her team and after a quick once over from Nurse Joy made her way out of the center and up the street to the gym. Pushing the door open Keyra blinked, it looked farely normal with the exception of a green-haired boy talking to the man at the other end of the room.

"Hi there! Are you here for a gym battle?"

"I. Am."

"I need to heal my team since I got distracted after my last battle, but Wallie here asked for my help. He wants to find a ralts, but I need to get my pokemon seen to."

Keyra smiled she knew how dependable the ralts line was, "I could help wallie if he wants."

The green-haired boy bounded over to Keyra with a grin, "Thanks! Let's go!"

Keyra blinked as the boy skipped out the door. Waving a good bye to the gym leader for the moment Keyra called out pearl, "Think you can help us find a ralts? This young man really wants one."

Wallie stopped and looked at pearl who looked back at him. Pearl nodded and the three made their way back to route one hundred and 2. Pearl let out a soft cry once the group got near some low grown willow trees.

"Syncronize can come in handy. It draws out pokemon with the same ability. And if ralts gets a status condition like burned or paralized the other pokemon would get it to unless the other is immune to that particular status."

At that moment a wave of psychic energy came flying through the trees causing Keyra and Wallie to duck. Wallie called out a small pink kitten who purred softly before turning to face the young male ralts that stood in front of it.

"Skitty, faint attack."

A black mist formed around the skitty before it slammed into the ralts. Ralts in turn let out a soft cry sending another confusion attack towards the kitten pokemon.

"Skitty, use double slap."

Turning Skitty slapped Ralts upside the head with her tail then turned and slapped ralts upside the other side of his head.

Wallie enlarged a pokeball and tossed it lightly at the panting ralts. The ball rocked several times before dinging slightly. Recalling his skitty Wallie grinned up at Keyra. "Thank you very much for the help!"  
Wallie turned and skipped off back to town and Keyra snickered slightly, She couldn't ever remember being that bubbly. Then again she couldn't remember a boy being that bubbly.

Recalling Pearl after thanking her for her help Keyra glanced up at the sky. She hoped there was enough time to get her gym battle in for the day she didn't realize just how late it really was. Returning to the gym Keyra noticed a sign on the door proclaiming that the gym was closed until the morning. Sighing Keyra was determined to be the first one there so she could get her gym battle and move on as early as possible. Making her way back out of Petelburg Keyra ducked into the lesser traveled part of route one hundred and two since any trainers she came across now would probably be newbies and she knew she was too strong for them. Making camp for the evening in a small clearing Keyra let out her team for the night. "We missed our chance today for our next badge, but I have already picked the two who will be batteling tomorrow. Autumn and dusk you're both up for this battle. I don't want you two doing anything too much tonight and want you both to get a good night sleep."

After that the five of them setteled down for some sleep. Keyra lay awake gazing at the stars when she heard a soft moaning coming from behind a bush. Carefully rolling over Keyra crept forward just enough to peer around the bush. What she saw for some reason didn't surprise her and just made her more certain that a talk needed to happen. Pearl was laying there, a hand between her legs. Keyra bit her lip as she could feel the flush of desire flowing through her. As quietly as she could she crept back to her sleepingbag determined to releave some of her own urges. She was unaware that pearl had crept back around the bush and was watching her. Keyra was also unaware of something that thrummed deep in her mind as both trainer and kirlia pleasured themselves while neither knew that they were thinking subconciously about the other. Keyra groaned into her pillow while her mind started wandering, "Why. Does she affect me like this. This can't be normal. Getting aroused by a pokemon can't be normal. And yet it's not normal, then why do I find myself liking what I see and wishing it was me touching her, doing things to her and visa versa." Growling at her own mental ramblings Keyra finally relaxed into sleep. Pearl stood next to the sleeping redhead and sighed. Autumn, dusk and blaze all looked at her shaking their heads. "It's not my fault I had to get a trainer who was seriously stubbern and not used to listening to her heart. And will you three quit laughing. "

The four pokemon all curled up around their trainer for the night and finally slept.

Rolling over the next morning Keyra blinked, her team had sprawled out over the clearing during the night, pearl was cuddled up against her, autumn napped in a tree. Blaze was curled up in a torracat doughnut with dusk sleeping on blaze's back. Keyra recalled her sleeping teammates before heading back into town determined to win her fifth badge.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter fourteen: The balance

Stepping into the gym once again Keyra spied the gym leader exiting a room in the back. He smiled at her brushing his fringe back from his face.

"It's good to see you again! Did everything go all right with Walley yesterday?"

Keyra smiled, "It did. It took longer than I expected, but we found him his ralts with my kirlia's help."

Normen smiled, I take it you're ready for your gym battle then? Before you do, you'll have to go through a little quiz to unlock the doors to my room. If you guess the answer wrong, you'll be batteling one of my gym trainers."

Keyra nodded as Norman turned and entered through a side door. She approached a door with a keypad next to it. Hitting the enter Key a question flashed across the screen.

"Technical machine twenty six contains, which move, earthquake, hidden power, or defog."

Keyra smiled, and chose earthquake. The door slid open and Keyra headed down a small hallway with another door at the end of it.

"Who has the stronger special attack, Latias, or Latios." Keyra frowned, she had never red up much on the legends, but she knew the lati dragons were twins. Frowning Keyra picked Latios causing the door to slid open. Stepping through and growling, she hated mazes. She found herself backtracking after several wrong turns. She finally found herself in front of a third door, "Took me long enough. How many more doors are there."

"Multi-scale increases what at full health, defense, or attack."

Keyra grumbled, the only 2 pokemon she knew to have multi scale wern't even native to this region, the two being Lugia and Dragonite. It was a nitch ability and easily broken by mold breaker, or entry hazords like spikes. Though when it wasn't broken it was a pretty good defense boost. Pushing the door open Keyra couldn't resist a mental headbash. Why did all these gym leaders love mazes. And this one had pokemon wandering around. Keyra tried to creep past the roaming hoards of zigzagoon and jiggleypuff, she didn't want a bunch of baloon fairies angry with her. She came to yet another door and ran a hand through her hair, "Who was the pokemon league's first choice for maskot, clefairy, jiggleypuff, or pikachu?"

Keyra smirked, Clefairy was the league's first choice, but someone felt that Pikachu would be more recognizable. Stepping through the door Keyra came face to face with Norman once again.

"I see you made it through my quiz maze. A good balance of brains and strength will take a trainer further than relying on pure power alone. Now. We will fight. This will be a two verses two double battle, the winner will be called when both of one side's pokemon are unable to battle."

Norman moved to one side of the rather plane looking battle field, there wasn't even anything to use as cover, "Wigglytuff and Slaking! Let's go!"

"Dusk and autumn, battle zone!" Keyra took a moment to observe the two across from her as autumn and dusk appeared with a cry. Wigglytuff was a normal and fairy type while slaking was a pure normal type, but arguably one of the strongest.

Keyra knew that these two would be a tough team to beat but she had faith in her pokemon. Wigglytuff was the major threat since it was immune to dusk's dragon attacks and could do some massive damage to the dragonfly pokemon. Keyra would have to have dusk play defense or have him focus on slaking while autumn focused on wigglytuff. Either that. Or maneuver in such a way where slaking would knock his own partner out. Frowning Keyra sifted through several different ideas before shrugging and adapting on the fly.

"Wigglytuff, sing! And slaking, focus punch!"

"Autumn, grass whistle! Dusk, faint attack on slaking!"

While wigglytuff and autumn were having a quick battle of the lullabies dusk flashed behind slaking who had started growling while spinning one of his massive arms around. A green blurr slammed into the back of slayking's head causing the focus punch to lose momentom. Sound waves were crashing all around and dusk kicked up a sandstorm to lose himself in trying to evade the sleep inducing waves.

Autumn and wigglytuff backed off before a flying green blurr slammed the normal and fairy type from below in a dig attack.

"Autumn! Leaf blade on wigglytuff!"

"Slaking, catch it! And wigglytuff, moonblast on vibrava!"

A massive hand slapped autumn away as dusk flew up trying to evade the ball of pinkish gray energy. The moonblast clipped dusk's side sending the vibrava into a tailspin

"Dusk, earthquake as you land."

Keyra had to trust that autumn would jump out of the way, trying to keep tabs on both her pokemon was more difficult than she had expected. Dusk dove down managing to correct his flight as he slammed his tail into the ground. Autumn had leapt over the quaking waves a few stray pulses causing him to stumble. The two normal types across the field wern't so lucky. "Wigglytuff, moonblast again! And slaking, hyper beam!"

"Autumn, leafblade on wigglytuff. Dusk get ready with protect."

A slash just grazed wigglytuff's side from autumn's leaves making the moonblast vier off slightly. As slaking fired the hyper beam the moonblast and hyper beam collided. The field was shrouded in smoke as pieces of the ground had been torn up from the impact. Dusk was standing in front of autumn his wings and tail fanned out in a protective dome while on the other side of the field both wigglytuff and slaking were breathing heavily.

"Wigglytuff, disarming voice!"

A series of pink sound waves suddenly flew across the field slamming into dusk and autumn. Dusk fell to the ground knocked out and Keyra quickly recalled him.

"Autumn, mega drain on wigglytuff while slaking's recharging!"

Several green orbs slammed into the pink baloon pokemon before the glowing green orbs reversed track and flew back to autumn who seemed to heal before Keyra's eyes. Wigglytuff fell forward exhausted and Norman recalled him. At that moment a massive roar was heard as slaking fired a focus punch at autumn. The grovyle landed hard on one knee and Keyra growled, even after several strong attacks, that slaking was still too strong. She was in the process of reaching for autumn's pokeball when the grovyle straightened up his eyes flashing green. In that instant a blueish white light engulfed him and Keyra couldn't help but grin.

Sceptile was a reptilian, bipedal Pokémon. His neck was somewhat long, and he had two crests on his head. He had semicircular, yellow eyes with red rims. His lower jaw and a belt-like band across his waist which were also red. Along his back, he had two lines running down the middle and two rows of yellow nodules that looked much like seeds. His tail was shaped similar to that of a palm tree's branch. Both of autumn's long arms had two sharp, elongated leaves and three claws. These leaves allowed him to use his signature move, Leaf Blade at full power.

When the light faded autumn, now a sceptile let out a massive roar and Keyra called out, "Autumn! Use strength! Then leaf blade!"

Autumn glowed a soft red as he slammed a fist into Slaking's face. Spinning he sent a flury of leaf blade slashes at the lazy ape pokemon who turned and clamped down on the leaves with his massive hands.

"Throw him, use your own strength!"

Both jungle pokemon stared at each other their bodies outlined in the glow of strength. Keyra could easily make out the fleksing muscles. She knew something needed to give. "Autumn's strength is in his blades. And. His. Legs. Wait, that's it! Autumn! Jump then hidden power on slaking's legs!"

Autumn's arms went slack as he leapt over the lazy ape's head delivering several leaf slashes on the way causing the ape to apply more weight on his arms to move. Swinging his tail around autumn sent a massive ball of green energy at Slaking's hind quarters. Keyra glanced down at her pokedex to see that autumn had forgotten hidden power and picked up dragon pulse instead.

"Slaking, end this, hyper beam!"

"Autumn, let's go. Solar Beam!"

Both pokemon formed orbs of vivid energy, slaking's a bright orange and autumn's was a soft green. Having managed to land in a shaft of sunlight from the gym's open window the solar beam had managed to charge quicker than slaking's hyper beam. The two attacks met closer to the lazy ape and billowed into a massive swirling ball of green and orange energy. Keyra knew what was about to happen and knew that that blast would knock out not just slaking but autumn as well and a draw wouldn't win her the match, "autumn, up into the rafters and protect yourself if you can!"

The next seconds were too fast for Keyra to make out but when the smoke cleared Slaking was sprawled out on the ground and a smirking wood gecko was hanging from one of the rafters.

"That was a well done battle Keyra! And it's my honor to present you with the balance badge!"

Norman also handed along with the badge the technical machine for hyper beam. Keyra knew that the only one who could use it now was autumn but since he had solar beam Keyra pocketed the disc figuring eventually either dusk or blaze would be able to use it, but she'd see what her team wanted to do first.

Exiting the gym Keyra glanced towards the southeast briefly before sighing. She was so far and as much as a part of her wanted to see her grandmother a larger part knew she was walking a different road and if she returned home she'd not want to leave. Letting pearl out of her pokeball Keyra ran a hand through her hair. "Do you think, you could teleport me to mauvill pearl?"

The next thing Keyra knew she was standing in front of the mauvill pokemon center. This time there was no sensation of floating and Keyra realized that it just proved that pearl's psychic powers were getting stronger little by little. Recalling the embrace pokemon Keyra headed into the pokemon center for the night. Tomorrow she would head out of town and head up river to fortree and beyond.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter fifteen: The shade

The wind blew hard across the shore of the river in front of her and Keyra smiled it felt good to be out in nature. She found herself not liking to stay in cities long finding them too crowded and noisy. The smaller towns like lavaridge and home and dewford wern't as bad as Slateport or Rustboro though. Watching the steam boats chugging over the water and the larger boats powering upstream past rapids Keyra sighed she could take a ferry right up to the edge of Fortree or she could let out autumn since the rainforest here he would be right at home in. She also knew that he needed to get used to his stronger body as well. Choice made She called out the jungle pokemon who grinned up at her. The two set off through the trees. Autumn was having too much fun leaping from branch to branch slashing at invisible foes while occasionally slashing a bundle of fruit off a tree limb. Keyra eyed the fruit that her septile was eating and grinned as he threw half the bunch at her. Picking one from the stem Keyra pealed it it felt like a banana, but had the color of grapefruit. When she bit into it it was sort of sweet and sort of tart at the same time, Keyra picked a few more of the fruits and put them in the compartment of her bag she kept the rest of her food stuffs in. The good thing about trainer bags is if you had the proper one with a food compartment you could keep food fresh indeffinatly. A loud battlecry from overhead made Keyra look up, A bright beam of blue energy slammed into autumn sending him hurteling towards the ground. Keyra noticed that the sceptile was already knocked out and quickly recalled him. Turning Keyra met the red eyes of an absol who seemed to be purring softly.

Absol was a quadruped, mammalian Pokémon with a dark blue to black body covered in white fur. She had a ruff around her neck and chest and a tuft on the top of her head adorned with a single blue-black oval. She had a feline face with almond-shaped, red eyes, a scythe-like tail, and a crescent shaped horn on the side of her head. Her broad feet were equipped with three claws each, and spikes protruded from the heels of her hind legs and the elbows of her front legs.

The absol let out a loud howl before darting off. Keyra called out blaze and the two quickly gave chase. The pair slipped through bushes and trees only just catching a glympse of the absol's white fur.

The trees grew thicker by far the deeper Keyra traveled. , giving way only briefly to a small stream meandering across the path. Keyra lost sight of Absol but blaze let out her own answering yowl as she seemed to catch scent of something.

Thick undergrowth hung across the path, making navagating it extremely difficult, yet in spite of that Keyra found the wood was quite serene and pleasant. Still, she was determined to find the absol who had taken out autumn in one hit. For a pokemon to take out a fully evolved sceptile like that had to be strong. Keyra also wondered why the absol had shown herself since they tended to stay away from humans. With blaze's help the two managed to cut their way into a small field where Keyra was able to pick up paw tracks, fresh ones. Following them She continued on.

To the side of the path the two found themselves walking a short time later, a small pond cast a reflection of the surrounding trees, seemingly upside down, in its depths. A few politoed could be heard croaking amongst the reeds and bulrushes. The leafy undergrowth seemed to fade abruptly beyond the pond, . The woods thinned out alarmingly quickly, Keyra did a double take as the trees gave way to steep, hilly country. Off in the distance, the towering structure of a cliff face could barely be seen, towards which the tracks Keyra and blaze were following appeared to lead..

The pathway of tracks ended abruptly at a towering cliff face. Intricate carvings of what Keyra theorize to be from some bygone religion cover the otherwise smooth rock, many of which appear to be some form of lettering. Far, far above her, cut into the face of unclimbable rocks, she could just make out the mouth of a cave, opening onto pitch blackness. Further off, just barely visible, the cliff gave way to sharp, jagged, white peaks. And sitting in the mouth of the cave was the absol blaze and her had been chasing. It stared down at them with contemplative red eyes before it let out another howl.

"Absol! I challenge you to a pokemon battle. A strong pokemon like you has much potential. If you join me, your potential can be reached. I've already seen you take out a fully evolved pokemon with one ice beam."

Leaping down the disaster pokemon bared her fangs as blaze stepped forward.

"Blaze, leech life!"

Leaping towards the white pokemon blaze sank glowing gray fangs into the scruff of Absol's neck. The dark type turned and slashed at blaze with glowing claws. Both dark types backed away from the other circling and in blaze's case spitting.

"Toxic!"

Blaze spat out several purple globs which Absol blasted with a well timed thunderbolt. Before disappearing and re-appearing behind blaze sending the alolan fire type back a pace after taking a shadow ball to the back.

"Flame thrower!"

A mass of white hot flames launched towards Absol who crouched dodging the flames slightly and Keyra smirked, throwing a pokeball. Once the ball dinged a successful capture Keyra released her new team mate and applied a potion to the absol's wounds. Blaze trotted over after cleaning her coat of dirt and playfully headbutted the other dark type who seemed to purr back.

"That's blaze, the sceptile you hit earlier is autumn. Would you like a nickname Absol?"

Nodding slightly Keyra began listing off various names dark and shadow related. The entire time she could swear that blaze was snickering at her. What was it with her team and not liking her choice of names at times.

"Shadow, naah too predictable, midnight, doesn't suit you... night falls into the same catigory, dusk is already taken by my vabrava. Shade?"

The newly caught dark type purred at that and Keyra smiled, "Alright shade it is!"

Calling out the rest of her team Keyra slipped a revival tablet between autumn's parted jaws while pearl used heal pulse on him. Looking around Keyra could make out buildings in the distance some on the ground and others in trees. Shade had made them chase her nearly to the border of Fortree. Keyra wasn't too sure about having two of the same type pokemon on her team, but shade was actually weak to less than blaze only fighting fairy and bug. Blaze was weak to fighting, ground, water and rock. So Keyra figured it would balance out well.

Recalling her team Keyra glanced up there would be no sense in heading to lilycove today it was a week trip and she wanted to get some training in with shade.

Entering the pokemon center Keyra was stopped short as everyone in the center was gazing at the large screen television which was usually kept quiet. But not right now.

"This is a breaking news report from the pokemon news network. We have just received a letter stating that several members of the criminal gang calling themselves Team Arrow have murdered the mosdeep gym leaders in a most groosom fassion. We don't have a motive, but from indications by people on the ground there it appears the two twins were both suffocated by muk."

Keyra stood there her face having gone pale much like everyone else in the pokemon center. Voices rose and fell like the tide and Keyra finally managed to make her way to the counter. Unlike most nurse joys who had a chansey as a healing partner, this one had a gardevoir helping her. The fully evolved psychic and fairy type's eyes flashed briefly before smiling at Keyra. Handing over her pokeballs to the gardevoir Keyra requested a room for three nights from the Joy behind the desk. Tonight she had planned on finding a spot to train and camp with her team and decided to breathe the next two, they had all been working and traveling hard. Also though Keyra was curious about the fallout from the news. Taking her pokeballs back from the nurse she made her way outside. Fortree was one of the most unique towns she had been through and one that seemed to be closely tied with the nature around it. Making her way out of the north side of town Keyra found herself in a clearing ringged by weeping willow trees. Calling out her team She set autumn and the others to work while beckoning pearl over to her. She wanted to push the images of two children being smuthered by a muck out of her mind so figured this would be the best time to talk to her companion about what this mental, sexual thing was between them. If Keyra was honest with herself she did find the kirlia very attractive and she was human like as well as psychic. It's not like she was a canine, reptile, feline or dragon or a ghost. But Keyra felt that she needed to understand before things got out of hand and something happened that would end up hurting them both. That was the last thing Keyra wanted to do. Mustering her courage Keyra smiled softly over at the kirlia next to her. "Pearl, I think we need to talk."


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter sixteen: the understanding

The two lay under a weeping willow and Keyra turned to look over at her pokemon companion, "Pearl, I think we need to talk. What's going on? I don't know how, or why, but I've seen you, twice before pleasuring yourself, and yet that makes me aroused as well, and I don't know why."

Pearl's mental voice had a slightly curious tone to it as the kirlia replied, "You act like this is a bad thing? Finding pleasure and enjoyment with someone else isn't wrong."

Keyra frowned, "No it's not, but you're a pokemon, I'm a human. Although you are very human-like and I do find myself liking what I see. Not to mention hear."

Pearl just smiled, "There's plenty of time in the world. Even if we did want more from each other than partner and trainer, my body won't be fully ready for that until I evolve."

Keyra sighed, "I find myself falling for a pokemon, for you. And for some reason, that thought doesn't repulse me like the thought of falling for another one of my pokemon would, including autumn who's my starter and the one I should know best."

"I've heard stories from my nest parents of Gardevoir and Galade who have been more than partners with trainers, but I don't know why. Some have kept it hidden from their friends, some though it's frowned upon so I've heard were open about it."

Keyra tilted her head, "So what do we do, I can't deny the fact I'm falling for you and I think you've already fallen for me, based on what I saw the other night as well as on the ferry to Slateport."

"We do nothing, not to each other, accept maybe, a kiss and a cuddle. And take pleasure from the other's pleasure."

That was how Keyra had found herself staring at Pearl who was staring back at her, while they lay on the soft grass outside Fortree both naked and smiling at their visual explorations of the other's body. The two never knew what was in the wind and that a major change was coming that would affect the entire world. After some time Keyra recalled Pearl and returned to the pokemon center re-releasing her team who all setteled around the room for the night.

Flames, there were flames all around her, and the smoke was so thick she could barely breathe. Her home was a blaze and the woman coughed as she tried to move. The man who had exited shortly before her home went up had said that she was a message to someone not to get in their way, but the woman didn't understand. A blazing beam fell nearly hitting her and in that moment the woman had to wonder, where her pokemon were. Managing to make her way downstairs she stopped shocked at what was in front of her, her team was all laying there, covered in bruises and what appeared to be bullet holes. Even the small rosalia that her grandaughter had found for her garden. Grief overwelmed the woman and she fell to her knees, the choking smoke and soul consuming grief at the loss of her team too much for her.

Outside the house blazed even as the littleroot police and fire departments tried to put it out the flames continued to burn.

Jolting awake at Pearl's prodding Keyra glanced around before her eyes fell on the kirlia in front of her, "Pearl what was that?"

Keyra gazed at the psychic type who's eyes were filled with pearly tears, she shook her head at the kirlia's reply, "Shade was howling, and I didn't know why. But future sight, I don't know if what I saw did happen, or will happen. But it was too real not to happen at some point in time."

A sudden knocking at the door of her room made Keyra jump, A frowning nurse joy and officer Jenny entered and Keyra could feel her blood turn to ice in their veins, "If this is about my absol's howling,"

"They only do that to fortell a disaster, we can't fault it for that. But this seems a more personal one. I just received a call from Professor Birch... It seems your grandmother and her team were killed last night. And it was covered up by their house being set on fire."

Keyra fell back onto the bed, Shade pressing against her while dusk and Blaze pressed against her legs. Pearl pressed against Keyra's other side and autumn snarled slightly as he took up a guard position at the foot of the bed causing the Joy and Jenny to smile, "With the recent activities and the deaths of the mosdeep gym twins, the league is putting a hold on all league related activities for now. Trainers are being asked to either head home, or barring that, they're being offered rooms in pokemon centers if they have no where else to go. As you are sixteen, you are technically considered an adult compared to the ten and eleven year olds most often on trainer journeys. We can't force you to stay in one place, but until things settle down it would be best advised that you refrain from traveling for now."

Keyra gazed up at the Nurse Joy after she had finished speaking, "I've got no where else to go... But I'm curious, can I still at least train my team? We had some things we were working on."

At that moment a flash of light lit up the room as the Jenny exited. The joy took a seat in front of the distraught younger woman her own eyes reflecting sadness. When the flash cleared a slender gardevoir stood next to Joy who smiled at it.

"This isn't the best time for this conversation, but I need to ask you, have you noticed any urges relating to your kirlia lately? Or anything from her relating to you?

Keyra's jaw hit the floor her face flaming. "If you mean the waves of pleasure I felt coming from her when I've been pleasuring myself then yes."

"Joy smiled softly, "relax you're not in trouble. The ralts line are devoted to their trainers. Be it male or female. It's not uncommon for ralts trainers to develop feelings for their partner or for it to go the other way. Didn't you think it odd that my partner was a gardevoir when most Joys use chanseys or occasionally Audinos?"

"So this is normal?" Keyra was still trying to control her blushing but the smugness she could sense from Pearl made that difficult. This was just what she needed, her emotions were now all over the place.

"If it was any other pokemon, no, it wouldn't be normal, and would possibly find you in some trouble, but the league realizes that the ralts line is unique, not only in appearance, but in their ability to bond with their trainers. It doesn't happen with every trainer who trains a ralts, but to the few it does, consider yourself lucky. No one knows why some trainers bond and other's don't, some theorize that if there was a tramatic event in the trainer's past the gardevoir or galade wants to help their trainer forget."

Keyra just nodded currently finding speaking to be difficult. The gardevoir next to Joy softly placed a hand on Keyra's forehead and Keyra felt a soft calming sensation come over her. When Gardevoir backed away Joy smiled before pulling the embrace pokemon into a soft kiss.

"Shameless aren't they, " Pearl's telepathic voice was amused slightly and Keyra could do nothing more but nod.

"Holy shit, that's fucking hot," Keyra grinned as the gardevoir turned teleporting the nurse and her out of the room. Keyra fell back on the bed her team gathered around her. She gazed over at the torracat curled at the foot of the bed next to shade, it was the only thing she had to now remember her parents and grandmother by. The fire and dark type gazed at her and Keyra finally let the tears fall. She couldn't help it, if it wern't for her team, she'd have no one.

Several days went by with trainers stepping in to the pokemon center before heading back out, with the gym circuit in disarray and many of the trainers she had seen looking no older than twelve Keyra figured that many were returning home for the time being. She didn't have a home to go to, so she spent most of her days either in her room gazing out the window, or looking around fortree for a pokemon to round out her team but none of the water types she saw suited her. It was after two weeks of moping around that Pearl teleported onto the woman's lap gazing at her with hard eyes, "Keyra, You do know you still have a family. We're your family. And we all love you. In different ways. This moping needs to stop. We don't want to see you waist away. There's still plenty of world to explore. And even the torcat says there's other regions than here to explore to get away from all of this."

Keyra just nodded at the kirlia in her lap, "I know pearl, it's just hard to move on."

It was in that moment when Pearl smirked, leant forward and pressed her lips against her trainers. Keyra's eyes went wide for a moment before wrapping her arms around the slender pokemon parting her mouth. Their tongues danced and the two lost all sense of time. Breaking the kiss Keyra gasped, "What was that, for."

"To prove to you that you're not alone, and when I finally evolve, I'm going to prove that to you once and for all. Our mutual masterbation sessions are nice, since my body isn't ready for mating yet, but it won't be long now. And when I am. I know it'll be good. I know you've had fun with friends back home before you became a trainer, and I hope we can have our own kind of fun."

With those words the Kirlia hopped off of the other woman's lap and Keyra let her head fall back with a groan. This was just what she needed the image of her and a sexy gardevoir making love somewhere. She smiled for a moment, not finding that thought repulsing in the slightest and after several days of being lost in a swirling mass of pain grief and confusion Keyra finally felt it clearing. She picked up her pokeballs and quietly recalled her team who were all watching her as she headed out of the pokemon center. She figured that if she could travel, she could stay far away from drama. Lilycove was only a week's travel away and glancing down at her pokedex to see what kind of pokemon were migrating at this time of year Keyra smiled, a pod of walrein were migrating that way and sometimes they would stop on the beach of lilycove to raise their young spheal. A water and ice type would round out her team quite nicely finishing up the coverage Keyra could use for the elite four when ever the league picked up the gym circuit again.

Keyra sighed slightly it felt good to have the sky and trees overhead. She wandered along routes dusted with wildflowers and over small brooks, the sights and sounds of nature was more soothing to her grief than staying cooped up in a busy city. Even though fortree wasn't busy by normal standards and she did like the nature feel to it. Keyra thought she could get used to living in a treehouse, and she knew that autumn would be right at home. The rest of her team however... Keyra shook her head, just imagining Blaze's rumble at living so high off the ground. Dusk wouldn't mind too much since he could fly, and Pearl, well, where ever Keyra went Pearl would follow.

It took her a short time to get out from the small rainforest around fortree, Keyra passed the grassy glade where she caught Shade and smiled, The absol had proven to be quite the valuable fighter with some devistating surprises. Both Shade and Blaze were out walking with the redhead at the moment her dark type duo seemed to be pretty good friends whether that was from a shared typing Keyra didn't know. There were things Keyra knew she'd have to be careful of, and that was bug types, but they wern't too big of an issue at this point in time, plus Blaze could just fry them to a squishy buggy mess. The dark cat was almost the stereotypical dark type once she evolved from her happy kitten litten days. She had the fierceness of most dark types where as Shade seemed to be more docile, that was unless you counted a threat to her pack. Keyra seriously hoped the absol counted her as pack. Otherwise things might not be all too pretty. It never occurred to her that the fact Shade had been right there giving comfort with the rest of Keyra's team had cemented the bond of pack to the Absol. Keyra made sure to stay far off the traveled path which ended up serving several purposes. She wouldn't possibly run into any of Team Arrow's goons, or random bands of vigilante trainers who wanted to play hero. There were always some who went looking for trouble just to get their fifteen minutes of fame, none of them ever knowing that they would be biting off more than they could chew. Stepping into a small clearing Keyra sighed, it was dotted with pale peach and rose wildflowers and had a small river flowing through it fed from a waterfall a bit off in the distance. The clearing would be a good spot to set up camp but it was too out in the open. Eying the waterfall Keyra turned to blaze, "Think you could use secret power behind the waterfall to make us a hopefully concealed cave? We're far off the beaten path so hopefully no one would think to look for us here and this place would be a good place to camp for a few days we could all use a vacation and this seems like a pretty good, worry free place."

The torracat rumbeled before sending a small lance of energy behind the waterfall creating a small fissure just large enough for Keyra to squeeze into though the cave at the other end of the fissure would be big enough for all 5 of them plus plenty of room to spare. Keyra setteled in for a few days not doing anything just relaxing with her team, they all needed a break and Keyra just needed to be away from people. A small vacation while confusion and pain raged around them would do the six of them good. It was only another three day's travel to lilycove and the Walrein would still be on the warm sands for at least another two weeks. She was glad that she was finally able to understand everything that was going on with Pearl and her, but the cost of that understanding was just too. High. Things needed to move on, and Keyra knew they would. For good or ill something was going to give soon, and they would face it when it came.


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter seventeen: The last

The two days that Keyra and her team had spent resting by the waterfall was enough to clear their minds and allowed Keyra to finally put the grief at losing her grandmother to rest. She didn't withdraw into a ball like she had at the Fortree pokemon center which pleased her team to no end. She cried, raged, spoke about happier times and autumn, blaze, dusk, shade, and pearl all gathered around to listen. Autumn even went so far as to form rocks with rock tomb for Keyra to smack, or punch or kick to get her anger out. It left her feeling awfully bruised by the end, but she did have to admit she felt better after it. Packing up after they felt rested enough Keyra glanced around, she had found a small spot of beauty and she was oddly sad to leave it. She knew she had to continue on, things were coming to a head and Keyra needed to fill out her team before what ever happened, happened.

Glancing down at her pokedex she decided to double check her team's moves knowing that they had managed to pick up one or two over the past few days.

As it stood they were quite diverse already.

Pearl had psychic, the fire type hidden power, magical leaf, hypnosis, dazzling gleam, thunderbolt, shock-wave, calm mind, dream eater, protect, confuse ray, heal pulse and had managed to pick up shadow ball.

Autumn had leaf blade, dragon pulse, protect, aerial ace, rock slide, which had replaced rock tomb. Fury cutter, earthquake, strength, iron tail, and he had picked up giga drain.

Blaze had flamethrower, iron tail, the electric type hidden power, crunch, secret power, toxic, dark pulse, protect, and leech life. She somehow had picked up cross chop, Keyra wasn't too sure where that had come from, she was trying to learn flair blitz as well as a move Keyra didn't recognize and Keyra knew she'd be able to use them when she reached her final form that was also when blaze would pick up outrage. A bit of a nasty surprise for anyone facing that.

Dusk had dragon breath, dragon pulse, sandstorm, earthquake, crunch, iron tail, protect and had picked up flamethrower with blaze's help.

Shade had night slash, thunderbolt, ice beam, flamethrower, shadow ball, protect, future sight, protect and had picked up dig and sucker punch. Keyra had also given her the hyper beam technical machine from Petelburg

Keyra was pleased with her team, though there was still a hole that needed to be filled and she hoped a spheal would be willing to join her. Pocketing her pokedex Keyra kept to the forests and less traveled parts of the routes she traveled. She wanted to stay off the main path still even if the pokemon she faced here were stronger than the normal ones one would find if a trainer stuck to the normal pathways. Banette and dusclops mostly, as well as a few roving mainectrik. There was a fringe benefit to traveling in the shadows of the forests, Keyra had managed to find several rare berries that could, with the proper preparation act as natural vitamins for her pokemon. Stepping through a gap in the trees Keyra finally noticed the lights of lilycove and she couldn't help but smile.

Making her way into the city She failed to notice several men who were hidden in the shadows by the gatehouse. One of the men lifted up a radio and spoke into it briefly before placing it back on his belt and fading back into the shadow of the building.

Keyra had just entered the pokemon center when she heard two high pitched shrieks and turned to wave at Brianna and Alayna who had both spotted her come in.

"What are you two doing here. And... Why are you two holding hands?"

The two girls blinked down both blushing as they let go of the other and Keyra snickered.

"I was here when the league shut down the gym circuit and there's really no good place to train so I'm kind of stuck here. Alayna sighed pushing a lock of hair behind her ears.

"They didn't just close down the league circuit, but the contests as well. So we're both stuck here. What are you doing here?"

Keyra sighed, "it seems like we're all going to be here for a while. Team Arrow killed my grandmother. The last human family member I had. I was a Keyra ball for two weeks in fortree, but needed to get out and when I noticed that it was walrein migration season, I came here since I'm short a spot and a spheal would round out my team nicely."

The three girls spent time catching up while Joy gave Keyra's pokemon a check up. When Keyra retrieved them a few hours later she bit farewell to her friends and headed out to the beach.

Hiding behind a rock Keyrawatched as several sealeo played with the smaller spheal Keyra guessed that they had hatched not too long ago. They looked like little blue balls of plush and Keyra knew that if Brianna and Alayna were here, the two of them as well as Keyra herself would end up squealing over cuteness. She could make out 4 massive walrein in the water as well as a few spheal who were much larger than the newborn ones. A noise next to her made her look down to see a farely large spheal staring back at her and Keyra smirked, "You look like a feisty one. Want a battle?"

The spheal let out a soft cry and Keyra let shade out, she didn't want to scare the rest of the sea lion pokemon away, or worse. Have them turn on her.

"Shade, night slash!"

The absol launched herself towards the happily clapping seal who tucked himself into a ball and rolled under the attack. Unballing himself the spheal let out a blast of ice which sparkeled in the light causing shade to leap out of the way

"Shade flip it with night slash."

The scythe on shade's head glowed again and a dark purple blade of energy lashed towards the seal causing it to roll onto it's back. Keyra pulled out a pokeball and tossed it lightly at the blue seal which dinged signaling a capture almost instantly. Keyra released the ice blue seal and paused taking a good look at it.

Spheal was a chubby, spherical, seal-like Pokémon with a short, flat tail. His plushy fur was light blue with several white spots of various sizes on his back. Keyra knew that the covering of fluffy fur protected Spheal from the cold. He had black, circular eyes, small tusks protruding from his upper jaw, and small, rounded ears. His stubby flippers and his underside were both a creamy beige. Keyra smiled, the water ice type was just what her team needed. No more waiting for ferries. Or boats. He looked pretty big for his species so Keyra figured he would be close to evolving. Crouching down Keyra smiled, "How would you like the name, Aurora?"

The spheal rolled into a ball and playfully butted against Keyra who smiled. Recalling the not so tiny seal Keyra returned to the lilycove pokemon center.

Retrieving her now full team back from the nurse after a once over before she called it a night Keyra stopped at the sound of an explosion just outside the center. There was thick smoke filling the door and as she watched along with the rest of the trainers the door gave in with an all mighty crash.

Standing in the doorway was a large prehistoric t-rex like pokemon. With a roar he launched a hyper beam scattering the trainers who were in front of the nurs's station.

Trainers released their pokemon, but the Tyrantrum batted many aside from a sweep of it's tail combined with a strong earthquake. Keyra's team surrounded her as they launched their attacks even Aurora let loose a massive ice beam but they were all sent flying due to another hyper beam. That's when Keyra saw a strange collar around the rock and dragon type's neck. Quickly recalling her team who were all already knocked out the redhead turned to run behind the counter and out the back exit, or she would of if the room hadn't filled with a cloying smog that sent Keyra to the ground. She coughed trying to move but her body felt heavy. Another breath and blackness overcame her.


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter eighteen: The Evolution

Keyra awoke in a room that was pitch black with a headache that could give a psyduck's a run for it's money. The last thing she remembered was the smog filling up the lilycove pokemon center and massive explosions as trainers tried to combat the massive Tyrantrum. Her own team was quickly taken out due to the machine heightened power of the revived rock and dragon type. Keyra didn't know where she was, or why she was here and she really didn't want to stick around to find out. She noticed that her bag and belt were missing, and worse she was also naked and shackeled to a wall. She didn't have a clue where she was, or why she had been captured. The only thing she could do was hang around and wait, and she didn't want to do that either. Keyra felt the old insecurities creeping in and she closed her eyes to try and push back the waves of anxiety that threatened to overwhelm her. Her mind flashed to her team, wondering what had happened to them, what was being done to them, or if she'd ever see them again. Her eyes fell shut and Keyra slipped into an uneasy sleep.

The sound of a key being ratteled in a lock jolted the redhead awake in an instant. A flash of light from the open door blinded her and before she knew it she was being dragged none too kindly down a hallway. Glancing around Keyra could make out small round windows, but what was outside those windows made her freeze. She was somehow under water. The room she was lead to was vastly different from the hallways that lead to it. There was a tight seal around the door and Keyra could feel rough stone under her. Her eyes glanced around and the only thing that gave off light came from a small fire in the corner. That fire however was coming from a sight that made her freeze. Blaze seemed to be held in a bubble of water a bubble that she was furiously trying to blast her way out of. Keyra was left where she was though with her arms shackeled behind her she found it very hard to move to take in the rest of her surroundings. A loud roar came from the other side of the room and Keyra winced, now that she was able to at least turn her head she managed to see that the rest of her team were surrounded in strange energy fields that kept them pinned down and she sighed, trying to think of a move one of them could use to get out so they could in turn help the others, but she was currently drawing a blank. She heard the door open and Keyra somehow managed to lever herself up into a sitting position while a well dressed man strode into the room a spike-healed boot sending her sprawling back to the ground where she lay winded briefly before a second man pulled her roughly up.

"You were a hard one to track down missy. But you were warned what would happen if you interfered with our plans again."

Glaring as much as she could Keyra snarled, "And just what plans are those."

"Since you're going to die. Once we've had our use of you, and since no one knows where we are just utside lilycove, this research complex having been abandoned for decades after aqua was disbanded. You see Keyra, our plans are simple. Awaken requaza and use him to control the weather, bring rain to who needs it, clear rain from places that are flooding. And in this way we're helping Hoen become a better place. But since we can control it, as well as the other primal legenderies, we can make a fortune!"

"So it's money you're after, and if people don't pay you what you want you're going to destroy the entire region! That's not helping people. That's extorting them for your own gain."

The man snickered, and this is why you're a thorn in my side. And thorns get dealt with."

Keyra felt herself flying through the air and landing on the stone floor knocking the wind out of her. As she lay there gasping for breath she heard the chink of a zipper being undone and she rolled behind a large machine that seemed to be powering one of the elemental shields surrounding autumn. Glancing up at her starter who seemed to be held in a field of fire and flying energy an idea finally hit the panicking young woman, she just hoped that autumn could hear her. " Rock slide autumn,"

The sceptyle's eyes snapped to hers and with what appeared to be a massive effort the orbs on his back glowed. Several rocks came loose from the wall crashing down on the energy dome shattering it. A loud yell came from the other side of the room and Keyra tried to make herself as small as possible behind the machine.

"Go, help the others. And get the others to help each other."

With a loud roar autumn darted off a leaf blade shattering the shield around Blaze who in turn blasted the shields around Shade and Pearl. Pearl teleported next to Keyra and the redhead noticed the vibrent glow in the kirlia's eyes, Pearl was one pissed off pokemon. Several flashes signaled the Team arrow goons as well as the man Keyra assumed to be their boss had finally released their pokemon and Keyra had to rely on the fact that her team were all fiercely protective of her and could handle themselves. An explosion sounded near by and Pearl grabbed Keyra teleporting to the other side of the room. As the light of teleportation faded Keyra found herself face to face with Arrow's boss who was literally caught with his pants around his ancles. A massive scizor leapt towards Pearl who turned sending a ball of hidden power into it's face. The man snarled at Keyra as he suddenly roughly pressed her against the wall, "No one. Makes a fool out of Henry."

Keyra could feel his breath on her neck as one of his hands slid between her legs. She could also feel Henry's length against her leg and Keyra kicked out, Henry grunted, but just pressed her even tighter against the wall. Removing his hand he instead pressed it against her throat. Keyra could feel her vision starting to spin and a painful heat between her legs. Another explosion shook the room causing the floor to buck sending henry stumbling away. Keyra fell to the floor and when she looked up she caught a glympse of something flying towards her before a tall blurr interscepted it.

Realizing what the blurr was Keyra screamed, "Pearl!"

The Kirlia glanced at her and seemed to smile before she was engulfed in a blueish white light. The light faded and in it's place was a knife wheelding very angry Gardevoir.

Gardevoir was a bipedal, humanoid Pokémon whose body resembled a flowing gown. Most of her body was still white, but her hair, arms, and the underside of her gown were the shade of turquoise that Keyra was accustom to. . Pearl's hair curled slightly over her face and flowed down her back. In all the insanity Keyra half wondered if the gardevoir would let her braid it to keep it out of the way in battle. . Behind her pink eyes were short spikes, resembling a masquerade mask. She had long arms with three fingers on each hand and slender white legs. A red, fin-like horn extended from her chest slightly , and a shorter, more rounded horn extended from her back. A band of green on her chest extended to the center of the front horn and connected to her sleeve-like arms. In the brief instant of evolution Keyra felt the bond between them bloom and Keyra knew it wouldn't be long before the two partners took the final step, it was something Keyra was looking forward to. If they made it out alive. That is.

"Pearl... Moonblast!"

Pearl's eyes flashed and a ball of pinkish gray energy formed in her hands. The newely evolved psychic and fairy type slammed the orb outwards causing it to explode. Before the blast could touch the rest of Keyra's team Keyra felt herself teleported once again along with her team and the underground base faded.


	20. Chapter 20

A.N: warning, first attempt at a small lemon at the bottom. I tried to keep it short and not too explisit. although I've seen seriously r rated stuff on here before. I still felt I should warn you.

Chapter nineteen: The bonding

When the light of teleportation faded Keyra found herself in a large island city, and had no clue where she was. Glancing over at Pearl who's eyes were a glow with power Keyra opened her mouth to speak but a call from further up the beach stopped her.

"Thank Arceus you're all right."

Spinning around Keyra saw Brianna and her alakazam sprinting towards her, "Things have been going crazy? No one knows why Team Arrow went after you, but I'm glad you're all right."

"I do... They wern't happy that I got in their way at Mount Chimney. But if they had made that volcano explode, many people would of died."

"You've got a set of morals that some gerks would benefit from."

The bubbly blond's eyes finally got a good look at Keyra, "You look like, shit, do I even want to know what they did to you."

It was in that instant Keyra's body decided to give way as she clung to her friend, "If you count making my team watch from behind strong psychic, or electric or dark energy barriors while one of them tried to..."

Keyra could feel her throat closing up briefly, "They didn't just want to kill me for being a small thorn in their plans they wanted to break me as well and if it wasn't for Pearl finally evolving and blasting one fuck of a moonblast,"

A low growl came from behind the blond trainer as a massive female ursering growled something and Brianna snickered, "Teddy, is a massive mother bear. Don't mind her. But damn, people are going to want to talk to you."

Keyra just nodded recalling her team who all looked the worse for ware though Pearl only reluctantly returned to her pokeball.

Brianna bounced over to her team and recalled them as well and the two trainers made their way to the pokemon center near by so Keyra could get her team as well as herself checked over.

It was several hours later when Keyra, Brianna and many other high level trainers Keyra knew to be elite level trainers employed by the league sat around tables while Keyra could see the champeon trainers from other regions congragated near by. Keyra felt rung out, she would give anything to curl up under a pile of blankets and sleep for a week plus, but if she slept, she knew she'd have nightmares for weeks. The league had gotten what Keyra was able to tell them about Team Arrow's leader but the few ghosts and dark types that were able to shadow travel to find the guy were unable to find him in the underground underwater hideout that Keyra told them she was held in. After the trainers were dismissed to rooms for the night Keyra found herself face down on a bed her team around her. Aurora's silky blue spheal fur felt warm against her and Pearl just laid Keyra's head in her lap the redheaded trainer taking a moment to admire the gardevoir's lythe body. Tomorrow they would train and train hard, Keyra didn't ever want to be in that situation again, first her uncle when she was thirteen, then Kyo after she beat him on the route outside Slateport, and now this.

A warm sensation enveloped her and Keyra glanced up to see Pearl's eyes glowing a soft lavender, "Sleep now. I'll keep the dreams away. Dream eater comes in handy."

Keyra blushed, the mental voice from the gardevoir had gone from the curious tone she had durring the week she was a ralts, to that odd saductive tone that made Keyra spend many a night pleasuring herself so she wouldn't flip and do something to her partner before they were ready. Although the nights they explored their mental bond leading them to watch while the other masterbated tempted them both. But now, the gardevoir's voice was a mix of silky, saductive and had the faint hint of a dominating possessiveness to it. Keyra just smiled knowing she didn't have to face her waking terror while she slept and she was greatful for that.

The sun was high in the sky when the group of six pokemon and one redhead exited the pokemon center to scout out a good spot to train, Aurora and Blaze as well as Dusk were all close to evolving judging by their attitudes when they woke up earlier that morning. The vabrava and torracat glared at anything that moved and the tiny bouncy rolly spheal's fur was fluffing up. Keyra knew that it wouldn't take much for the three of them to evolve. She missed the small signs with autumn and Pearl that first time back in the Petelburg Woods, but now she knew what to look for. The group ducked into a cleft between 2 massive bolders and Keyra grinned, "Blaze this seems like a good spot to camp for some time, use secret power on that bolder over there."

The torracat roared and a scythe of energy split a grove in the bolder which Keyra inspected, the interior was large enough for a cozy den for her and her team so she laid out her supplies, After her shopping spree at the lilycove department store, Keyra was pleased, she was able to slightly spoil her team with a small camp stove as well as more refined pokemon food for each of her team mates. Once their base camp was set up Keyra and her team setteled down to train.

Pearl gazed over at the tall woman beside her, the long flame red hair streaked with dirt from the day's training. She would do anything for the woman next to her, and had in fact. She had only just recovered from taking a knife to the stomach after all but Pearl knew that her feelings were true. The kisses and hugs and gentel exploration the two had done was nothing compared to what she could feel building now. Keyra, it's time!"  
"Are you sure?" Keyra gazed at the slender figure next to her, the first ever pokemon she had captured and felt a rush of joy run through her.  
"Of course I am. I'm yours and You're mine!" The telepathic voice coming from Pearl was sexually possessive and Keyra found that she didn't mind the odd feeling of possessiveness coming from her partner, who was more than her partner.

The two gazed at each other beside the star reflected stretch of beach, and Keyra smiled. She was by no means new to this, but the Gardavoir staring at her with such devotion deffenatly was. But that was all right. Leaning in the redhead pressed her lips to the shiny psychic and fairy type next to her, and from that kiss the world faded, replaced with passion filled bliss. The world may be filled with death and confusion. The pokemon league may be up in arms against team Arrow, but in this moment there were only the two lovers, and in that moment that's all the two cared about.

Skin pressed on skin and waves of joy were almost palpaple in the air. Ending in a massive explosion of sensations and lightning struck flames that ceared over their souls.

Keyra smiled as she gazed over at Pearl who had a soft glow about her, the moon and starlight bathing their naked sweaty skin in a soft misty silver and Keyra couldn't help but press her lips to her partner's again. Their tongues intertwined and Keyra felt Pearl's silky hands caress her once more. The two lovers melded as one again, and several times over the night. Keyra could almost forget why they were even doing this, what she needed to forget. Her human family was gone, her grandmother...

Clenching her eyes shut to try and ward off the images Keyra opened them again to see Pearl's rosy orbs gazing at her and the two just lay like that Pearl's ethereal buty when baithed by moonlight enough to take Keyra's breath away.

Pearl gazed down at the naked goddess beneath her and felt the woman's own grief still strong in the back of her mind. The gardevoir softly caressed one of Keyra's toned silky thighs with a hand before moving higher causing the other woman to moan. Pearl loved the feeling of mating with and being mated to her trainer and relished in exploring what she could now do with her psychic powers to maybe bring them both even more pleasure.

After many hours and as the sun was just beginning to rise the two lovers finally fell asleep, their bodies intertwined.

Waking up several hours later Pearl glanced around, the little boulder cluster they were in was sheltered from the rest of the beach and the gardevoir smiled as she gazed down at the sleeping naked woman beside her, Pearl would do and had done much for her trainer, but what they shared last night, well the turquoise haired psychic fairy wanted more, the feel of her trainer's hands on her body was amazing. Smiling softly Pearl let one of her hands caress over Keyra's parted thighs for a moment before she dipped her fingers inside the sleeping woman and began to move them slowly in and out.

She was having the strangest but best dream ever, she was warm and content and there was a soft ache between her legs, that was until she opened her eyes and Keyra found out she wasn't actually dreaming. Pearl was leaning over her, with a hand between her legs. Keyra smiled and reached over, sliding a hand under her lover's dress feeling that the gardevoir was equally as aroused. Smirking Keyra softly stroked the gardevoir beside her causing Pearl to let out a soft moan. In the back of her mind Keyra knew she should probably start training her team, but she was having too much fun exploring the new side of her and Pearl's sexual relationship. After the hell that was the past two days Keyra figured there was no harm in taking a day off to act like a sex crazed teen. At least that's when she realized she was. Mostly already a sex-crazed teen. Between thirteen and sixteen she had done some gentel explorations with her friends back home, male and female alike, but she never went all the way with her male friends since they really wern't her type.

Sitting up Keyra smiled pressing her lips against the slender gardevoir's the two moaning into the other's mouth as their tongues intertwined. The feeling of Pearl's silky tongue caressing hers was enough to send small shivers through Keyra's entire body. Keyra quickly pushed up Pearl's dress so it wouldn't get in the way as the two wrapped their legs around the other's waist. The first touch of Pearl's core against hers made small stars burst in front of Keyra's eyes. Breaking for air Keyra whispered, "I don't remember much about last night. Let's make this one to remember."

The two began to grind together the sexual energy wreathing around both of them making small psychic sparks fly. Pearl's body had a faint psychic glow around it which also spread to envelope Keyra as well. The redheaded trainer was aware of something stilling in her mind and she was able to think more clearly.

"Your mind was too full last night of the mental bond we shared so it clouded a lot of our first sexual experience with each other. Now that things have setteled more, you won't be so muttle minded again. That is until I send you over the edge myself."

The power behind Pearl's telepathic voice belay the psychic power the gardevoir now held. And the muscles she had from all the resistance training she had done with Blaze and Shade rippeled as the two moved against the other. Keyra could feel a tightening throughout her body and whimpered softly. Pearl's lips descended on her again and Keyra currently envied the gardevoir's ability to speak telepathically at this moment, "Don't whimper, I want the whole world to hear you, to hear that we belong together, that you're my mate."

Pearl ground harder against Keyra and the redhead felt waves of pleasure like fire struck lightning crash over her. She threw back her head moaning loudly followed by a loud cry from Pearl. In that moment Keyra felt something cere the side of her neck the slight pain just adding to the overwelming pleasure she was feeling. Once the two came down from a sex induced high Keyra smirked, "That, was fucking insane. I think today's dead to us for training, we'll pick it up tomorrow. But I don't think my body can handle another one of those for a while."

Both human and pokemon washed up in the ocean and Keyra quickly redressed herself calling out the other five members of her team who all piled on top of Keyra and Pearl. Things may be spiraling out of control, but for this moment in time Keyra could say she was truly happy. She had a family, and someone who loved her beyond all else. That's what life was supposed to be. She knew now she had a family, and they would face the oncoming storm together, the bonds between them would grow stronger from this point on and they would all come out of this stronger and wiser.


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter twenty: The aftermath

Stepping out of the Mosdeep pokemon center several days later Keyra sighed, The league officials wanted her and her team to get a check up daily to make sure nothing adverse had been done to them Keyra understood why they wanted to keep an eye on her and her team but she knew her body and she knew her team, they were fine. Though blaze, dusk, and Aurora were all itching for a fight. Keyra figured she would set them to spar against the other three members of her team to give them that final push they needed to finally evolve. The trainers who were here were told they needed to stay here, and even though the league was giving out badges it wasn't safe to travel. If someone wished to challenge one of the other gym leaders they would arange for the leader to be teleported here instead. Keyra seriously contemplated asking to face Wynona and would more than likely do that once she got most of her team trained and her torracat, vibrava and spheal to evolve. But until then she would just find a quiet place to train. The small clearing of boulders was a pretty good spot for training and. Other things so Keyra decided to head back there.

Although the league was aranging for gym leaders to be teleported in, they still hadn't named a replacement for the island's own gym and it appeared that it would be a long time before they did. Telling the nurse on duty where she would be Keyra headed down the beach and slipped between a small opening between two boulders. Calling out her team Keyra winced as blaze Aurora and dusk all glared at each other. Something which surprised the redhead since spheal wern't normally aggressive.

"Alright. You guys are sparring, blaze you're paired up with shade. Aurora you're paired with pearl and dusk you're with autumn. I don't want anyone hurt do you understand me?"

The six of them nodded and Keyra perched on a flat rock out of the way. It was a good thing she did because the attacks started flying fast and furious, flames and ice beams and the occasional rock or bullet seed all met in the middle of their loose ring before the center was detenated by a massive moonblast from pearl. Keyra grumbled before raising her voice, "I didn't say it was a free for all! Pair off and move to different spots around here."

Looking sheepish the three pairs of pokemon moved off and the mayhem was a little less insane. A little. Less insane until three bright flashes lit up the clearing.

Dusk hovered in the air his longer tail lashing as his wings made a low humming sound and Keyra grinned at her newly evolved flygon

Dusk resembled a slightly insectoid, bipedal dragon. He was primarily light green and had a pair of large rhombus-shaped wings with a red trim, toeless hind legs, and skinny arms with three-clawed hands. His tail had several dark green stripes and three small green rhombus shapes with red trim at the end. He had large eyes, and a pair of green antennae that pointed back. The eyes had red covers that would prevent sand from getting into his eyes. Dusk had only picked up two moves from his evolution, but when those moves were dragon rush and draco meteor, Keyra couldn't complain too much.

Aurora rolled into a ball happily rolling around the clearing and Keyra snickered, "Oi, unball so I can take a look at you, I want to make sure everything's in place."

The sealeo stopped dead and unballed himself. Aurora was a bright blue, pinniped Pokémon. His throat and chest were beige with speckling around the edges. There were two short tusks protruding from his upper jaw, and he had dark brown, oval eyes. He had a powerful pair of front flippers, which seemed able to crush ice. Additionally, he had a short, flipper-like tail. On the sides of his blunt muzzle were thick, white whiskers. Aurora had managed to learn body slam, surf, and blizard

The final pokemon made Keyra grin, the fire type she had raised from an egg had finally grown up. And damn did she look cool. Blaze stood there looking like some sort of cat-like wrestler.

The incineroar was a bipedal, feline Pokémon with a muscular build. She had a short snout with a small red nose, bright green eyes with yellow sclerae, and tiny, pointed ears. Large tufts of red fur extended from her cheeks, and much of her face was also red. The upper half of her muzzle and the top and back of her head were black. A thin red stripe ran vertically along her head to her snout, where it split into a V-shape over her eyes. Her torso was gray with several black stripes and seemd to resemble a tank-top the front and back both have a single vertical stripe up the center, crossed by two horizontal lines. Around Incineroar's waist was a belt formed from flames. In the front center was a small, yellow flame shape. The arms, legs, and tail were all red with black stripes forming bands around them. The arms had three stripes, spiky tufts of black fur over the shoulders, and large five-fingered hands with white claws and a single light red pad on the palm. Her legs had only two stripes and simple three-toed paws, and the tail had one stripe and a tuft of spiky black fur around the tip. Keyra smiled, blaze had picked up flare blitz, outrage, and a move she had never heard of called darkest lariot. All in all she was pleased with the work everyone was doing.

Once the fervor of their team mates tripple evolution died down the six of them seemed able to spar better without attacks flying around everywhere. Keyra spent the time watching her newest teammate. Though Aurora had only been on the team for a short time and was going up against a fully evolved pokemon like most of Keyra's team was he seemed to be holding his own. Keyra also observed shade the absol appeared to have potential when she caught her back in the forest around Fortree, but she had quickly realized that the ice beam was the only attack that had that kind of power to it. Keyra figured that because shade was in a jungle like forest with many grass and flying types she had trained her ice beam to be stronger than usual so she could better defend her territory from the others who lived there. Keyra had decided to work with her on her other attacks to build up the power she could put behind them so her entire arsonal would be just as strong. Granted autumn had only just evolved a few days before so that may of played a part in his easy knock out, but Keyra didn't think so.

Setteling down and about to make lunch Keyra looked down as she felt something gently headbutt her leg. Aurora was balled up and Keyra grinned, "I was about to make everyone's lunch."

The Aurora ball grunted for a moment before rolling over to the water and unballing while waving a flipper at Keyra.  
"What, you want me to get on your back?"

Aurora nodded and Keyra set down her bag and carefully climbed onto the sealeo's back. She wasn't sure where to hold on, so she carefully took ahold of the fur on his back.

"Alright Aurora, let's ride. Just don't drop me."

Letting out a soft cry the sea-lion pokemon set off at an easy glide, one in which Keyra couldn't even feal the waves that she knew should be there. She found that riding on the back of a pokemon was deffenatly better than any boat. It made her feel closer to the newest member of her team and she knew that the sealeo was also enjoying being out in the ocean although he was able to move around on land, this is where he was more comfortable. Stopping after a point Aurora turned and Keyra gasped. Seeing mosdeep island like this, built on corsola coral was an awe inspiring sight. The island glinted a soft pink in the sun. Keyra knew that though things were crazy, there was still beauty in the world natural beauty, "Thanks Aurora. Let's get back to the others now you've all got to be hungry."

After the two made it back to the beach Keyra sighed, she didn't feel much like cooking so figured she'd head back to the pokemon center to see what was on offer and figured her team could use a bit of spoiling. Recalling the six of them Keyra returned to the pokemon center.

Entering the lobby Keyra glanced around, the league officials seemed to of left or at least Keyra couldn't see them so she made her way to the cafiteria. Ordering her team their preferred pokemon food which consisted of nuts berries and some kind of meat she couldn't identify for autumn, some kind of gray meat for dusk and blaze. A huge bowl of pasta for pearl since she for some reason only known to her wanted spaghetti smuthered in pumpkin sauce. A magicarp fillet for Aurora shade wanted a bowl of tropical fruit. Keyra grinned it was all somewhat healthy. That was until she sat down with her own lunch. A tripple chocolate milkshake and a double taurros burger topped with hot sauce, chedder cheese pickles and grumpig bacon. She couldn't help it. Near death experiences, sex, more sex and training herself along with her team made her hungry.

At that point just as she was finishing up a man with short gray hair approached her a warm smile on his face wearing the uniform of a past league champeon.

"Mind if I join you, this isn't something we want to plaster over the entire pokemon center."

Keyra's team all stiffened until she cleared her throat then they setteled down. The man smiled, "It's good to see such a strong bond between trainer and pokemon. I don't think anyone could fault them for being weary of strangers after what you've been through."

Keyra nodded after swallowing the last of her burger, "You said you didn't want this plastered all over the center, What, can I do for you?"

"The league's found out where Team Arrow was heading after several days of work and finally managing to get a spy into their organization. We're rounding up a team of trainers to help take them out and wondered if you wanted to be a part of it since you've dealt with them more than most trainers."

"I'm not one for revenge, and if I say yes, please don't think that's why I'm agreeing. But they seem to be fixated on me and I don't know why."

The man nodded, "It was more than a fixation on you, it's also partially and I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but a family vendetta. We've all done our investigating and it seems they were the remnence of team aqua and team magma who formed up to make a new team and who stopped the first two when he was a trainer? Your father."

Keyra knew that her father had had a hand in stopping Team Aqua and Magma, but she didn't know that this team was the remainder of them... "So the fire. That killed my parents. Wasn't an accident."

The man shook his head, "I'm sorry to say it wasn't. So will you help?"

"Why not. Keep things in the family as it were."

The man smiled we will be leaving in three days. If you want to make a gym challenge before then since I know you were passing through Fortree when everything happened to your grandmother then let the nurse at the desk know. Do you have a pokemon who can surf?"

"I have a sealeo. Will that work?"

Nodding the Man stood up Glancing at Keyra's team he nodded approvingly, "You keep them all in good health. It's not often a first year trainer would challenge the elite four. Let me share a piece of advice, work on their speed, work on taking hits. Judging by the muscles on your gardevoir you already do that. But now that they're all fully evolved, work on taking full power attacks. Your sealio will benefit from that as well though it will be a month or so before he evolves into walrein. They grow from second to final form rather quick unlike some other pokemon."

Nodding Keyra returned her team, "Where do I meet the, team for the Team Arrow base?"

"We'll be assembling at the other side of the island past the space center at dawn."

The two shook hands and Keyra decided that now was as good as time as any to get her sixth badge. She inquired about a teleport for the Fortree gym leader and was told that she could be here in three hours. Keyra just nodded and headed over to a squashy sofa to wait and plan with her team.


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter twenty one: The flight

Standing on the beach Keyra watched as a tall woman with fly away chesnut brown hair approached her. She would admit that she was nervous about this gym battle and hoped her team would be able to handle things.

"So, you're Keyra. I was coming out this way anyway when I was informed you wanted a gym battle since I'm one of the trainers who will be going on the Team Arrow rade. In deference to that, I'd like to make this a one verses one battle so our teams aren't over strained for what's to come?"

Keyra nodded as she smiled, "I didn't know that other gym leaders would be there? And the terms are fine by me."

Wynona smiled as she stepped back, "It's our homes too they want to mess with so of course we'd be involved. Oltaria! Let's fly!"

Keyra gazed over at the blue and cream dragon and flying type. Dusk could match her dragon for dragon, but there was little else the flygon could do. Although his flying would come in handy. Pearl would be immune to the dragon type attacks, but she was ground bound same with the rest of her team.

"Dusk, Battle Zone!"

Dusk landed on the field with a roar as he lashed his tail.

"Oltaria, take wing, aerial ace!"

"Dusk, catch it!"

The dragon and flying type's wings flashed blue as she spiraled towards the ground dragon. Dusk raised his foreclaws and though he was pushed back from the flying type attack he still managed to catch the oltaria's wings in his claws. Tilting his head back the flygon let out a blast of dragonbreath right in the blue bird's face causing her to screech loudly.

"Oltaria, fly up, and use brave bird! Drag Flygon with you!"

"Dusk, use your wings! And launch draco meteor!"

The two dragons took to the air one under her own power, the second having claws dug into his tail and yanked skyward. A pale blue flaming glow formed around oltaria while a golden orb formed between dusk's rapidly humming buzzing wings. Opening his wings to the fullest dusk launched the draco meteor over head causing the still rising oltaria to plow into it with a screech. The blue flames of brave bird faded as she tried to right herself which allowed dusk to riggle out of her claws.

The two dragons hovered there glaring at each other as the two woman on the ground watched.

"Let me guess. Your flygon's only just evolved Keyra?"

Keyra nodded as the gym leader continued, "He's going to want to prove his strength. From what I know of your team you've got a torracat who when they evolve are notorious for ignoring their trainers if it suits them, and yet you raised that torracat from an egg so it will more than likely not act like normal incineroar specifically because you impressed on it when it hatched. They can't go against who raised them. But dragons are over all different the only reason I know so much is because oltaria who I got as my starter from a researcher near my home as a swablu explained the same to me."

Keyra frowned, as Wynona had been talking the two dragons had met in several more dizzying clashes of dragon breaths and dragon pulses.

"Dusk! Sandstorm!"

A massive funnel of sand formed around the two and quickly spun up around the makeshift field. Belatedly Keyra realized a beach was a bad place to use that attack, since it also picked up the beach sand as well. The ground shifted then setteled again as both dragons landed and a massive earthquake spread from the point of oltaria's claws.

A snarl came from the sandstorm once it cleared and Keyra could make out dusk's lashing tail.

"Dusk, rock slide."

Turning towards Keyra dusk snarled causing the trainer to blink. Dusk seemed not to recognize her, She thought back to what the gym leader had said, dragons needed to prove themselves, but to who Keyra wondered, dusk was her friend, he had nothing to prove to her, she loved him and was proud of him the way he was. Win or lose.

"Dusk, you know me. Don't snarl at me. It's not becoming of you. I'm proud of you. You have nothing to prove to me or anyone. If you have something to prove to yourself, then let me help you."

The flygon lowered his head looking rather sad. He let out a soft croon and Keyra reached out to scratch behind his eye ridges. Glancing towards the Oltaria and back to dusk she asked, "Do you want to finish this. Win or lose we're all proud of you. I'll do what ever you want."

Dusk let out a loud roar as he turned back to the Oltaria causing Keyra to grin.

"Rock Slide!"

"Oltaria, perish song."

Keyra hissed, tricks. She hated those kinds of tricks. They went against her preferred battle style. Though she had to admit they were affective. Dusk swayed on his claws before stomping the ground and causing a tumble of rocks to burst out of the ground and surround the duel dragon type. Human and pokemon watched the pile of rocks shift as a flaming blue blurr soared out of it. Oltaria turned and began a spiral dive back towards dusk streeks of silver shooting off her in a move Keyra realized was sky attack. dusk opened his mouth and roared once more sending a ball of draconic energy into the sky where it collided with the cloud-like pokemon triggering an explosion of silver and teal energy. Dusk took to the sky landing in front of Wynona with the passed out oltaria and the gym leader recalled her with a smile and a soft pat to the flygon's head.

Recalling her dragon Keyra ran a hand through her hair as Wynona approached her. Holding out her hand the older woman smiled, "Steven was right to invite you along. You have total faith in your pokemon and would do anything for them. And they in turn would do anything for you. I'm pleased to present you with this feather badge."

Grinning Keyra placed the badge with the others in her badge case. The two woman nodded to each other as they both made their way to the pokemon center to have their dragons looked at, neither took a major beating and if what Keyra guessed was true about Oltaria being Wynona's starter the gym leader was really holding back because of the team Arrow rade in a few days then Keyra wondered what batteling that bird would be like if the gym leader wasn't holding back. Keyra headed up to her room and released her team somehow all seven of them managed to fit Keyra wasn't really sure how but they did. She let herself fall back on the bed dusk curling up beside the bed on a poofy pink beanbag once Keyra was done healing his injuries. She would take it easy for the next two days but she couldn't help but wonder what awaited her when they made it to where ever Team Arrow was and just what they were planning. With thoughts of hectic battles and legendary pokemon filling her head Keyra slipped into a deep not so dreamless sleep.


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter twenty two: The legend

On the day they were due to leave Keyra awoke to the window of her room being pelted with rain, and it wasn't your average mid summer drizzle. It was an all out sideways flying wind blowing rain storm. For some reason this storm bothered Keyra and it was more than the rain that she swore was moving sideways, more than the royaling purple stormclouds she could make out in the distance something just felt wrong. Pearl shifted restlessly beside her and Keyra knew that her team could sense it too. Pokemon were more in tune with nature than humans were and when something disturbed the balance of nature, naturally pokemon were going to sense it. Straightening up Keyra checked the supplies she had gotten over the past two days from hyper potions to max heals, a few full restores and she had even managed to find a max revive that had washed up on the beach. She didn't know where they were going, but she had picked up a max repel to keep wild pokemon at bay just to be safe. Pulling out a rain poncho Keyra threw it on as she made her way to the meeting point where she was told to meet the others. She seriously hoped the storm moved away because she knew that surfing on her sealeo in this weather was going to flat out suck. Rounding a tall sand dune Keyra spied a group of trainers and found someone she actually recognized, The trainer she had met on Mount Chimney was standing in the croud a tall burly blastoise beside him.

"Hello again Ray!" Keyra called softly as she approached the taller man.

Ray turned and looked at her, "Keyra glad to see you're doing well."

Ray sighed and ran a hand through his hair and that's when Keyra noticed his eyes were red-rimmed and there were bags under his eyes as if he hadn't slept lately. Keyra looked down to see a crumpled picture of two kids held in one of his hands, "If I look good that's more than I can say about you. Are you ok?"

"The Mosdeep gym leaders were my younger cousins." And with those words Keyra knew exactly why the older man looked as he did. Losing family was never easy and when you lost family to murdering gerks who wanted revenge it was one hundred times worse. Just then a tall man with spikey red hair wearing a black red and blue body suit and a black and red cape stood up on a rock.

"Our spies inform me that Team Arrow is heading to the Sky Pillar so that is where we will be heading. You will all be given your assignments when we get there. So let out your surfers, or flyers and we'll be off. I want everyone to stick together and not lose sight of those around you. This storm's going to be here for a while though it's not reached Sky Pillar just yet. It's a half hour surf to where we need to be so let's get moving!"

Keyra let out Aurora at the shore and carefully climbed on the sealeo's back. Ray was in front of her and a woman with a massive whailord took the leade. As the three moved off Keyra could make out people on various flying types and other water types some Keyra had only read about in books. The sea despite the storm wasn't as rough as the redhead had expected so it was farely smoothe sailing.

Stormclouds royaled overhead as the group of trainers landed at the base of a towering stone tower. The three elite trainers as well as others from leagues past and current, two dozen in all made their way into the base of Sky pillar. Keyra glanced around, she was the youngest trainer here by far, but she knew that she was only being allowed to help because of what her and her team had been through up to this point, having the most experience with what Team Arrow had done Keyra knew that the current league champeon really just wanted her involved so she didn't become a target again. Keyra didn't really understand why arrow was fascenated with her, it had to be more than just what was said when they captured her, and yet Keyra was at a loss to understand their obsession with her. It creeped her ought to the extreme and deep down, a part of her was hoping to find the answer as to why their leader was so interested in her. She hoped it wasn't for any other reason than just revenge for her father's take down of aqua and magma decades ago. Although she now suspected even though nothing was ever confirmed that it was no accident that killed her parents.

As the group entered the tower Keyra took in the long ancient drawings of rayquaza. There was a silent strength depicted in the ancient green black and gold sirpant dragon and had to ask herself just how Team Arrow ever thought they could control such a creature. Stopping with the others the leader of the group by the name of Archy gestured, some trainers would stay down here to guard the entrence, others would scale the inside of the tower to the top while the rest would take fliers to the top to try and stave off Team Arrow. The only pokemon Keyra had who could fly was Dusk, but the flygon couldn't bring anyone with him so that wouldn't work. She would just have to content herself with getting to see the inside of the mythical Sky pillar, something very few in their first year of training could ever bost. It was true Keyra had proven herself as only one of the eight trainers who decided to take the elite four challenge instead of the normal league tournament. The dedication to only a select few pokemon took a different kind of person and Keyra wouldn't change or trade her team for anything, they had all been through a lot together and had weapt together, laughed, and grieved together. Even the newest member of her team, Aurora had been through an experience that Keyra wouldn't wish on anyone, human or pokemon.

The groups split up and Keyra was left with the group who were to ascend the tower on foot, Keyra was now glad she managed to bring the max repel with her. The man who was leading her group turned as she pulled it out with a grin, "A first year trainer with some sense. First year you may be, but I'm glad you're mature enough to handle this. And smart to boot."

Keyra felt a warm glow of pride as she offered the bottle around and everyone took a few sprays. The scent made her eyes water but it quickly faded. She still had enough for another group dose if needed.

The group came to the stairs up to the next level and the second group spread out surrounding the stairs this group Keyra noticed was formed of trainers who looked as if they were more towards the coordinator end of things and that's when Keyra noticed someone she'd not noticed before, Brianna stood off to one side, a massive ghostly marowak standing beside her a flaming black bone club in it's hand. The group of trainers slowly climbed the stairs and heard a massive explosion from somewhere far above them. The group of eight trainers looked between themselves for a moment before picking up the pace.

They quickly covered the third and fourth floors, but when they reached the fifth a massive pile of bolders blocked the staircase.

"Does anyone have a pokemon with strength to move these rocks?"

The team lead who Keyra noticed was actually the same man who had approached her the other day Steven. Keyra called out autumn who glanced at her, "Can you move these rocks out of our way, just be careful we don't know if any more will fall and I don't want you hurt."

Autumn leapt over the rock ring and Keyra glanced around while he was working, the other six trainers all looked rather sheepish. Steven turned to the rest of them, "I've worked with you all for years, and with the missions we've been sent on none of you thought to equip any of your teams with the move strength? And it's left to a first year trainer to show you all up? You should all feel really embarrassed right now."

Steven's quiet rant was interrupted by the shifting of the boulders in front of them autumn having shifted them as quietly as he could before walking back over to his trainer. The eight of them moved forward but more cautiously now. Autumn had decided to stay out of his pokeball and next to Keyra, and a good thing too. A massive tremmer rocked the tower and bits of the ceiling had started caving in. Autumn scooped up Keyra and had leapt over the falling rocks just as a massive groan could be heard. With a roar that sounded more like a freight train the ceiling where her group had just been standing collapsed. The stones shifted briefly before stilling and Keyra could feel the blood in her veins turn to ice. Looking up she saw Steven hovering on the back of a massive metagross.

"Metagross, use psychic to lift those bolders. If any of them are injured as they're sure to be, teleport them back to base for treatment. Keyra, I'm going to lift you up here. Are you all right?"

Swallowing as she saw the rubble being lifted away Keyra felt a leaf cover her eyes but that couldn't mask the smell of blood.

"Damn it. Dead. Damn it all to the darkest pit of hell."

Keyra felt herself being lifted as she saw autumn leap off the rubble and up to the next floor. She forced herself not to look down at the carnage below her. She couldn't see, but she could smell the scent of blood and had to fight back the bial rising in her throat. Glancing at Steven who glanced back the two nodded, a silent understanding passing between the two as they eyed the last staircase. Moving silently up it the two came face to face with utter insanity, dragons, and other varying types of pokemon clashed while off to one side a massive sirpant dragon seemed to sleep. The two trainers let out their team shade launching a hyper beam as well as dusk at the poison and dark types across the way. The two hyper beams met with a second pair of hyper beams launched from a massive tyranitar and scizor who were standing in front of Team Arrow's leader triggering a third explosion. When the dust settled a silence seemed to fill the tower's rooftop. Glancing over Keyra knew why everything had stopped. In the silence the massive emerald dragon's golden eyes opened. Rayquaza was now awake...


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter twenty three: The downfall

"What do you do when you just woke up a sleeping dragon. Don't stand there cackling for one. For two, don't send a moonblast at it from an evil looking clefable. Since when was there even such a thing as an evil clefable anyway. And three, don't stand there with a creeppy black metal collar that doesn't look like it could fit around the angry dragon's leg let alone it's neck while proclaiming you want to rule the skies."

All these thoughts went through Keyra's head in a flash while a deeper part of her mind couldn't help but stare in awe at the massive emerald dragon. There was no sound accept that of the rain that was just starting to fall. The storm was about to break and Keyra hoped they'd all still be alive at the end of it.

The tall spike-haired man who had led this expidition stepped up his dark eyes glaring at Henry as he laughed, "Lance of Johto, do you seriously think you can stop me now?"

"You've gotten here, but you've not even begun, you can't control a dragon who has ruled the skies longer than the regions have been around."

Lance had a rather booming voice and Keyra chanced a glance over at the massive rayquaza who stood there watching it's golden eyes glittering. With a flick of his wrist almost as if he was throwing a pokeball Henry hurled the collar towards the sky dragon as it flew the collar expanded and unhinged partially. With a loud roar a ball of draconic energy blasted the collar into tiny bits. Keyra also noticed that the storm that was brewing overhead was starting to clear but the natural storm wasn't what worried her, the one brewing in front of her is what had her worried. Looking around Keyra noticed that the six pokemon of Henry's all had the same collar around their neck including the Tyrantrum who attacked the Lilycove pokemon center.

Keyra turned to the trainers around her, "Those collars they make his pokemon stronger than they normally would be. If we destroy them, the pokemon would be bak to their normal selves. They also seem to have some sort of mind control since I've never seen an evil looking Clefable before."

Keyra could hear the whispering and caught flashes of light as teams were sent out. Keyra released her six in a series of flashes.

Glancing over at pearl Keyra sighed, "Love, do you think you could hang back from the fighting to help heal pokemon who are going to need it, things are going to get very ugly."

With a nod pearl backed up to where a few chansey an audino and a rather bulky Blissey were waiting. Just then one of Lance's three dragonite dove with a roar scooping up henrey's scizor and Rayquaza let out a massive roar. Several beams of energy shot from his mouth and the dragon seemed to grow in size. Keyra had heard of mega evolution, but she never thought she'd see it in person. A massive howling could be heard and when the light faded Rayquaza was still standing there, but it had turned. Slightly different, the gold rings around it's body had formed into ridges and it's eyes still looked like they were filled with infinant rage. With a ground quaking roar and a flash of green Henry's pokemon were sent flying after one lash of Raquaza's tail had shattered their controling collars.

Everyone else by this point had spread out so as not to give the enraged legendary easy targets in case it's rage was turned on them and that's when Keyra found herself leaning against a pillar close to the corner of the roof.

She felt something or someone grab hold of her arm before it was knocked away. Turning Keyra caught a glympse of a Team Arrow grunt plummeting over the side of the roof as shade stood next to her. There were too many pokemon to fight affectivly and looking up Keyra saw Lance's dragonite slam the scizor he had picked up early on in the fight into the ground. Rayquaza had taken wing flying away from the pillar and Keyra half wondered if they had succeeded in driving it away, never to return. Moving carefully away from the edge of the roof There was suddenly a man standing in front of her, "Damn you, you're just like your fucking father."

Keyra stood staring at Henry who glared at her a snarling houndoom by his side. "Houndoom, maul her."

Aurora was suddenly there between her and the snarling houndoom, a houndoom who backed away his ears flat to his head. With a kick Henry sent the dark fire dog sprawling and Keyra saw red. His pokemon had been under his control and now that they were free from it, they wanted nothing to do with him, but that was no reason to abuse them.

She flew towards the man with a loud scream managing to land a punch to his stomach, but that was all she managed to do since in the next instant one of Henry's arms was around her neck pressing on her windpipe. There was a massive clash of bodies in front of her and Keyra could make out, through the airless haze her team meeting Henrey's in a clash of brutal blows.

Turning with Keyra still held against him Henrey moved around the batteling pokemon looking up to see a massive green bolt tear the sky. Keyra felt his arm loosen and she tried to push it away. A flash of golden emerald sent Henry and her flying back and then Keyra could only feel herself land on hard stone. She had been knocked away from Henry and in her place was the heavily bleeding form of Aurora. His back was clawed nearly to the bone and for a sealeo that was saying something, through thick fur and fat and muscle.

"Aurora!" Keyra screamed as she could see her friend's warm amber eyes were still open but only slightly. Recalling the water and ice seal Keyra clutched his pokeball. Turning Keyra could also see Rayquaza gazing at her a deep sorrow now filling the ancient dragon's eyes as if to say, "I'm sorry."

With a loud mornfull Cry The dragon flew away higher and higher into the sky. Looking back down Keyra saw that Henry was hanging off the side of the roof

"Clefable, come pull me up."

The pink fairy backed away from him shaking her head her body shaking. Keyra also noticed that his scizor who had several dents in his crimson armor had backed away as well along with the rest of his team. Keyra moved forward, falling off a tower was no way to die, and Keyra knew that the league wanted him alive. The sounds of battle still raged around her but they were lessening now so she moved over to the man and held out a hand.

A loud cracking sound made Henry gerk involentarily as the roof began to crumble where he was. With a loud shriek he found himself falling as the sun broke through the clouds. A distant muffeled sound could be heard and Keyra noticed a far far down spray of water. . There was a loud silence behind her with the exception of footsteps. She had managed to recall the rest of her team, but couldn't stop gazing over the edge of Sky Pillar. Keyra knew that no one could survive a fall from over two thousand feet up. The horror that was Team Arrow. Was over, but the recovery would take months, or even years.


	25. Chapter 25

Chapter twenty four: The recovery

Keyra gazed over the edge of the roof, it was a long long way down and she knew no one could of survived that. She knew that Henry deserved to die, but she had never thought he would of died due to a stupid accident. Though she had also thought his own team would never of turned on him like they did. But what made things worse is she had also never thought that one enraged legendery pokemon could of caused so much damage. She looked down at her hands which cradled Aurora's pokeball the light on it was still red so she knew that in suspended anamation her sealeo was still alive, but how much longer would he be so once he was released. In her mind she saw again the image of Aurora who just laid there, blood covering his ice blue fur and she finally allowed the tears to fall. She would of been dragged down with Henry if it wasn't for him getting in the way and pushing her out of the way of Rayquaza's slashing dragon claws. The rest of her team bar pearl had been recalled earlier in the fight. She knew her gardevoir would of wanted to fight alongside her, but she was needed to heal the other pokemon who had fallen before Steven and her had reached the top of Sky Pillar. Most trainers never experienced so much death and distruction on their journeys though for the ones who did it changed them, in ways those who never saw it could ever imagine. When someone started out they were naive and thought the world was all sunshine and butterflies, they had no sense of their own mortality. Keyra wondered half the time why the pokemon league let ten year olds out on their own considering how many failed in their first year for various reasons.

The spikey red-haired man from earlier who she now knew was Johto's champeon Lance as well as Kanto's champeon, Chase approached her and she had a hard time swallowing her tears, it wouldn't do for these men to see her cry.

Lance crouched down and spoke gently, "There's a way to help your sealeo. Something was done for one of my dragonite many years ago when he took a badly formed horn drill but I'd have to take him with me. If things go well and the infusion of ditto cells works, he should be right as rain in two weeks."

Keyra blinked up at the johto champeon, "You'd, do this for me?"

"No pokemon deserves to die. Even more so when they risked themselves to save their trainer's life. Devotion like that shouldn't be rewarded with pain and death."

Keyra glanced down at Aurora's pokeball before gently handing it to the taller man, "Where, will you be taking him, and how, will I get him back or know..."

Keyra felt the words die in her throat and was thankful when pearl finally teleported to her side so Keyra could lean on her.

"The league circuit is still closed for now, since we need to not only find a new leader for Mosdeep, but we lost Wan in the first wave of attacks. So everyone who took part today will be put up in a hotel in Mosdeep for the time being. Food and board paid for by the Evergrand league. I will keep you posted there."

Keyra just nodded the iron fist around her heart not letting go enough to allow her to speak.

Keyra and the remaining seventeen trainers had made it back down to the base of Sky Pillar where now that the storm had cleared a pokemon league sponsered boat waited to take them back to Mosdeep. Keyra was glad of the boat and she was sure the rest of the trainers who came were as well since everyone's pokemon were exhausted or injured Aurora wasn't the only one to need urgent medical care more than what your standard pokemon center could provide. She and the other remaining trainers were told they couldn't talk to anyone just yet about what transpired at the top of Sky Pillar so they were being sequestered to one of the hotel's until the news broke about Arrow's downfall.

One of the league trainers had sent her whailord down to retrieve Henry's body which was revealed to have several flash drives containing data that the authorities were working on decoding. The battleworn group were shown to their rooms and Lance stopped by to tell Keyra he would keep her informed about Aurora's condition and that he would contact her later that night. Gazing out the window and watching the sun roam across the sky Keyra just laid there occasionally rubbing her neck, she knew it would bruise heavily the next day but she couldn't muster up the energy to have anyone take a look at it. Hotel staff were busy enough as it was running trainer's pokemon back and forth to the pokemon center. Keyra rolled over the room was too quiet so she started flipping through channels on the television in the hopes of finding something to distract herself with. Throwing the remote across the room Keyra sighed and finally found a music channel since she really only wanted the noise anyway. A knock on the door made her sit up and a man entered with a tray of pokeballs handing them back to her. The man bowed before heading back out of the room and Keyra knew she had to explain to her team why Aurora wouldn't be around or training for the for seeable future.

Calling out her team one by one Keyra took the time to check them over herself. She knew that they would of already been healed at the pokemon center but she still had to see for herself that everyone was all right.

Autumn was the first to glance around and frown slightly. That was the cue for the other four to look around, "Keyra? Where's our Aurora conrad?"

Sitting on the floor as pearl sat next to her and the others found places to rest Keyra sighed, "He's with Lance Johto's champeon for a little while. He was, injured quite badly in the battle."

Blaze rumbled something and pearl turned back to Keyra, "Blaze wants to know what happened? Since the last she saw Aurora was sniping at a crobat."

Keyra pressed her fists to her eyes and rubbed them, she didn't want to start crying again. She started speaking slowly hoping that her team wouldn't get too upset, "Henry was about to throw me off the roof. Rayquaza came roaring in with a what I'm guessing was a dragon ascent. I think he was going to attack Henry but I was in the way. Aurora rolled into him with a body slam and ended up getting wounded pretty badly... There was so much blood. I recalled him and Lance said that he'd seen an injury like that before. Damn it I could see the bones of his spine for Arceus sake. Anyway, Lance said he could heal Aurora by infusing him with ditto cells, I don't know how exactly that's supposed to work, but he's going to be healing for the next two weeks. Until then we're here."

There was a stunned silence in the room before shade leaned over and nuzzled against Keyra purring blaze sprawled out plopping her head in Keyra's lap dusk landed on the bed behind Keyra and laid his snout on her head while pearl pressed against Keyra's other side. Autumn managed to slip behind her and pull her into a hug his claws resting lightly on her shoulders. Keyra just sighed, she seriously hoped to hear from Lance soon. Looking out the window Keyra noticed that it had already gotten dark out. There was a buz from the phone on the nightstand and pearl pulled it over to the redhead with a weak pulse of psychic.

"Hello?" Keyra was surprised her voice wasn't a shaking mess.

"Keyra, Aurora is responding well to the ditto cell treatment, the wound on his back is closed over, now it's just waiting for the muscle fur and fat to regenerate. Then it will be a few days for him to get used to it and I'll have him back to you earlier than I thought, give it a week and you'll have your sealeo back. He'll have to take it easy on training for the first few days but he'll be all right."

"Thank you Lance. How. Much, do I owe you? For this?"

"You and the other trainers who helped out have more than paid the price. Don't worry about the cost of this, as I said no pokemon deserves to die when defending their trainer. I'll have them transfer Aurora's pokeball to you when he's good to go."

Keyra and Lance spent a little more time talking before Keyra hung up the phone. She leant back against autumn and dusk plopped his snout back on top of her head. She didn't know how long her team and her stayed like that, Keyra having dozed off some point durring the night. When she woke up she found herself on the bottom of a rather heavy pokemon pile of snoring drooling purring pokemon. Moving out from beneath her team so as not to disturb them Keyra made her way into the shower letting out a low groan as the hot water eased tight muscles. Reaching up Keyra ran a hand through her hair and leant against the wall letting the water run over her. A soft rustle made her blink as she saw pearl's head peaking around the curtain. The gardevoir's gaze roved over Keyra's body before she giggled, "We're hungry."

"I get that. But you know I can't feed my team what I could easily and happily feed you."

Pearl withdrew her head still giggling and Keyra was glad that pearl wouldn't push for anything. It wasn't the time or the place for that. Turning off the water Keyra wrapped one of the hotel's fluffy towels around her as she headed back out into the main room. Pausing Keyra blinked at what she was seeing before turning to pearl who was lounging on the bed. "Pearl... Did you guys try making your own food?"

"No... We found it sitting on top of the TV."

Around the room were wrappers from the hotel's complimentary pokemon treats while she had been in the shower her team had apparently helped themselves. A sceptile eating an apple was all well and good, but an incineroar and an absol arguing over the last chocolate chip cookie was kind of unexpected. A flygon eating gummy worms was equally as unexpected. Pearl sucking on a lolypop however, not so unexpected. Keyra shook her head before asking, "Did you guys save anything for me?"

With a mouth full of food autumn pointed to a stack of candy bars and a can of cherry lime soda. Keyra mentally snickered, her team knew her all too well. Last night's news that Aurora was going to be all right made her feel like she could eat an entire rack of honey barbecue ribs. She decided however not to do that until her sealeo was back with her and she'd settle for a pile of candy and soda instead.

The week went by slowly Keyra and her team were the last ones to get debriefed about the Arrow raid consiquently she was let out of the hotel the day that the story would break on the pokemon news network. The days between the raid and getting out of the hotel were usually spent either in her room, or at the pool. A pool which also allowed pokemon thankfully she'd hate to have a bored sceptile make a mess of the bedsheets or something. At night while her team was asleep pearl would silently slide into her bed and it would be some time before the two of them managed to sleep. It was during one of their late night cuddling sessions Keyra posed a question. "Pearl, I was wondering, would it be easier if you were to cut maybe 2 slits in your gown? One in the front and one in the back? It seems like it would be rather hard to dodge in like it is now."

"You just want easier access to my body. That's the real reason."

Keyra rolled her eyes at the giggling gardevoir, "What we have is something special, but there's more to a relationship than sex. I know that and despite your pervyness I know you know that too."

Pearl stopped giggling as she grinned, "In truth, that would make things easier if I needed to physically dodge an attack. I was also wondering could something be done with my hair, it kept blowing in my face durring the battle because of the wind."

Keyra ran her fingers through the silky turquoise locks and smiled, I could brade it. It would look good that way as well and it would stay out of your face."

Pearl nodded a happy smile on her face as the two cuddled against each other Keyra carefully stroking the crystal spike on her partner's chest.

Keyra stepped out of the hotel having received Aurora's pokeball that morning and having been advised to not let him out around people but to do it in private since the sealeo's back was still pink instead of it's usual ice blue. Standing on a quiet part of the beach her team beside her Keyra called out Aurora who landed in the water with a happy bellow. Keyra ran an eye over him and noticed that though the spot where raquaza's claws had lashed him was covered in fur and everything felt all right, the fur was ditto pink. It actually looked kind of cute on the ice blue seal but she knew Aurora wouldn't see it that way. Softly petting his head fur Keyra reached into her bag and pulled out a hunk of magicarp meat which Aurora took quite happily.

"Thank you Aurora. You saved my life and I don't want to know what would of happened if Henry had managed to pull me down with him." Keyra leaned over and hugged Aurora gently the weary look in the sealeo's amber eyes faded and was replaced with his usually happy go lucky glint. Keyra knew that it would take the region a long time to recover and team arrow's wounds would leave scars that may never heal, but her team was holding up nicely. Their recovery was happening steadily and though Keyra knew she would still have nightmares for some time she knew everything would work out in the end. Looking down at the badge she was given by the hotel as she was leaving Keyra unfolded the note that went along with it.

"In thanks for your participation in ridding the Hoen region of Team Arrow and due to the fact that we are still trying to find a replacement for the Mosdeep gym, We at the league are awarding you officially the mind badge. You were the first one to notice what many on your mission had missed about the Arrow leader's pokemon so this badge is not awarded out of pitty You earned this. Good luck in your future endeavors."

Keyra smiled before pocketing the badge with the rest. It would take her two weeks to get to the last gym and she hoped that there would be a replacement, or at least a substitute there when she got there. Aurora was able to travel, but Keyra would still stop every few hours on the small islands that dotted the ocean for the sealeo to rest. Things were looking up finally and Keyra was glad of that. Climbing carefully onto Aurora's back and recalling her team the two set off into the expanse of ocean onward moving on from where they've been knowing that everything would be all right.


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter twenty five: The traveler

Keyra was laying on the beach of one of the many islands that dotted Hoen's oceans as she made her way to cytopalous city. On her lap was a small drawing pad that she had picked up to give herself something to do while her team, Aurora most of all rested every couple of hours. She was two days away from the ancient sea city and Keyra had noticed the sealeo getting a little stronger every day. Smiling to herself as she looked down at the sketch she had been working on for the past few minutes Keyra put the last small finishing touch on it.

She had woken up before the sun had even began to rise unable to sleep any more and had let out her team for some air. She had glanced over at pearl who was twirling around in some sort of dance and that was when Keyra had started sketching. It was an image of a woman silhouetted against the silver of moon and hints of dawn and the pearly glow of starshine.

Keyra could almost picture pearl being the woman depicted in there. Pulling out another pencil from the pack she kept with her Keyra started another drawing while keeping an eye on Aurora who was rolling around in the waves.

Glancing down at the sketchpad several minutes later Keyra smiled, the drawing seeming to mirror her current view a bit further down the white sandy beach.

Closing her sketchpad Keyra stood and stretched brushing the sand from her pants. Recalling her team all but Aurora Keyra grinned over at the sealeo who as they had been traveling had finally regained his full coat of icy blue fur.

"Are you ready to set off?"

Aurora let out a soft cry turning around so Keyra could climb onto his back. The two set off heading away from the rising sun. Checking her map Keyra frowned, cytopalous city was said to be built in the crater of a long extinct oceanic volcanoout in the middle of the sea routes between Mosdeep and Slateport. There was a small sea town between the two and Cytopalous was said to be nearer to Mosdeep. But to get into it, one had to circle around the long way and approach from a totally different direction unless one had diving gear which was the easier way to get in but the far more expensive. Traveling via surfing gave Keyra a view that not many trainers took the time to admire, the expanse of nature, blue sky, currently calm ocean and pokemon in their natural habitat. That is unless you were a magicarp fleeing from a hungry Aurora. Every time the redhead would stop the water and ice type would dive down and come back up with one of the struggling fish before cracking it's scales with his powerful and yet still developing tusks.

It was several hours later and Keyra was about to tell Aurora to slow down so she could find an island to rest on when the sealeo let out a loud cry. Keyra could feel his body gently shape and change beneath her and realized that Aurora wanted to be stronger himself. When Steven said that sealeo grew quickly she had expected a month. Although given all the surfing he had been doing the slightly early evolution didn't surprise her. Her team was now complete.

As a walrein Aurora was a large, sea lion-like Pokémon with a layer of blubber under his skin. He was primarily blue, with thin, white rings around his neck and lines on his fan-like tailfin. There were two long, ivory tusks in his upper jaw. He had a round snout and yellow eyes, and large tufts of white fur about his face and neck. His four short legs had long flippers instead of feet. This allowed him to move about on land easier than rolling into a ball like he did as a spheal and sealeo.

Aurora let out a loud bellow as he turned to look at Keyra, "Damn Aurora, you're... Big. Please don't drop me. I think you can keep going for a few more hours yet if you're up for that."

A bellow was all the answer Keyra got as Aurora sped off the wind wipping Keyra's hair back from her face. She loved the feel of the wind in her hair and on her face. Staying low against Aurora's massive bulk the two cut easily through the water. They were moving so fast that rocks and islands passed by like brown and tan and white blurrs. It was many hours later the moon had only just risen in the sky when Keyra could make out the massive white cliffs of cytopalous and tapped Aurora on the side of his head to direct him in what way to go. The cliffs were massive and the two had to be careful in avoiding the whirlpools that could sometimes form. After several minutes of careful maneuvering they came across a small inlet that lead into the cliff. Aurora managed to duck down most of his body under water and Keyra could feel it lapping at the bottom of her boots but the two managed to make it through. Stopping on a patch of land Keyra recalled the fully evolved sea lion for a rest. Glancing around Keyra noticed the pokemon center a small ways up on one of the cliffs. Carefully climbing the stone stairs that were hewn from the cliffface Keyra headed inside. She was looking forward to a bed and hot food that she hadn't cooked herself for a change. Tomorrow she would find out about the gym and just what was going on since she had been out of touch for the past two weeks. Tomorrow she would start on her way to victory.


End file.
